Leadership cover

07.10.14

TueSDAY

FOR GOD AND COUNTRY

Years

No. 2,269

N150

NIGeRIA’S MOST INFLueNTIAL NeWSPAPeR

Chibok DAY Diary

176

Leadership Newspapers

@leadershipNGA

4 DAYS TO GO...

Chibok Community In Doubt Of FIRST GRADUATION CEREMONY OF Identity Of Abandoned Girl > Page 2 BAZE UNIVERSITY, ABUJA 17

Arms Deal: FG, South Africa Row Over Another $5.7m Seizure

By Bayo oladeji and GeorGe aGBa, Abuja

The Nigerian government and its South African counterpart are in a fresh diplomatic row over another $5.7 million arms

Transaction legitimate – NSA

money from Nigeria seized in that country yesterday.

This is coming barely one month after two Nigerians and

an Israeli national were nabbed in South Africa while attempting to smuggle $9.3 million apparently meant for buying arms for

Shettima Nupe, Makama Minna Pass On > Page 4

the Nigerian intelligence service.

A South Africa-based paper, City Express, reported yesterday that, just as with the first deal, South Africa’s Asset Forfeiture Unit of the National Prose➔ CONTINUES ON PAGE 5

Sallah celeBration: a boy climbing a plastic rock at the Wonderland Park in abuja, yesterday.

Photo By ogoh josePh

Troops Reclaim Michika, Kill 100 Boko Haraam 5

Jonathan in Niger Republic for solution As NAF acquires more aircraft

Crude Oil Theft: NNPC Raises The Alarm Over Fake Authorisation Letters > Page 7

2

chibok diary 176

Monday, October 6, 2014

DAY

Chibok TweeTs @IamPrincezza

what happend to #BringBackourgirls campaign?? The silence. @EiENigeria

By oct 31st, our #Chibokgirls would have been in captivity for 200 days! as a country, as a people, we can do better! #BringBackourgirls

@Chichaaay_

Twitter patriotism only lasts for 3.7 seconds. No one really cared rT

Members of #BringBackourGirls (BBoG) Group in a meeting towards the safe rescue of the Chibok schoolgirls in abuja.

@qham_qham1 what

happened to the girls? #BringBackourgirls

@toyinquest

I haven't demanded for my sisters today. gEJ #BrINgBaCkoUrgIrLS Now and alive

@rescueourgirls

174 days since Esther ayuba taken from #Chibok. will she ever come home? Never forget. #BringBackourgirls @spillaneda

abubakar Shekau appears in video a week after having been allegedly killed. where are remaining Chibok girls? #Bokoharam #BringBackourgirls @Scouse_Banana

#wearredEveryday upping the game on this now as its dropping off radar. #BringBackourgirls

@etinmagbe our hearts are crying and aching with pain! Is there anyone listening?? #BringBackourgirls #BringBackourgirls @gbengasesan You can’t find what you’re not looking for. Ìwákùwá là nwá nkan tó sonù.

To #BringBackourgirls, the task has to be a defining priority.

Compiled by Iroka UgoChUkwU

Chibok Community In Doubt Over Identity Of Abandoned Girl

By Chika Mefor aND ejike ejike, Abuja

Following the report that the formerly captive girl Susanna Ishaya, who was abandoned by her captors in Adamawa State nearly two weeks ago, is not one of the schoolgirls abducted by the Boko Haram sect at Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State on April 14, 2014, the chairman of the Chibok community in Abuja, Tsambido Hosea-Abana, had stated that he cannot confirm if the story was true or false.

Hosea-Abana, who spoke to LEADERSHIP at the daily sit-out of the #BringBackOurGirl group yesterday, stated that he had heard the story himself and wondered how the bearer of the news Dr. Bitrus Pogu, was able to ascertain that Sussana was not one of the abducted schoolgirls.

“I heard it but since I have not had any contact with the girl, I cannot say if the story is true or not. My question is, how did the person know that she is not one of the Chibok girls? Is the girl back

to her senses? All I know is that she is still with the Military Intelligence and receiving treatment.

“I haven’t had any contact with her. I tried to get one of her classmates to identify her but since I noticed that the government was not keen on ascertaining who she really is, I did not bother again,” he said.

LEADERSHIP recalls that Sussana Ishaya was found after she was dumped at an unidentified location from where she walked for three days to a village near Mararraban Mubi, where she was found by villagers and taken to a nearby police station. She was said to be highly traumatised by her ordeal and tests showed

she was four months pregnant.

One of the leaders of the Chibok Elders Forum, Dr. Pogu Bitrus, had come out to say that the girl, who is now in custody of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), is not one of the girls abducted by the Boko Haram sect from the school on that fateful day.

Some members of the #BringBackourGirls (BBoG) Group during a protest in abuja.

OMOKAGBO

PHOTO BY OYEDELE

3

our stand Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Adopt National ID As International Travel Document

T

he National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is making a case for the adoption of the new National e-ID card as a valid travel document, just like the passport. The commission claims that the card is a Machine Readable Travel Document (MRTD), recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). In making this recommendation, NIMC said that the card contains three lines called Machine Readable Zone (MRZ), just as the passport does. The commission also said that one of the 13 applets embedded in the JCOP chip on the card has content similar to what is in Nigeria’s e-passport and it is known as ICAO applet, so it could easily be used as a travel document, subject to approval of the international community.

It said that the development of MRZ was as a result of NIMC’s compliance with the ICAO document 9303 parts 1 and 2 and noted that If adopted, it would make travel easier, especially for frequent travellers who have to renew their passports and visas quite often. Similarly,

the commission said that it is a better way to document travel information, as the loss of the identity card would not impair the information therein, as it would not be accessed by other people. ICAO applet is designed to be active at the time one picks up his e-ID card, or the citizen may wish to activate it to make travelling easier.

NIMC maintained that rigorous testing by international testing agencies has ensured that the contents of the chip meet or exceed the standards set by the internationally recognised body.

In our opinion, the adoption of the national identity card as an internationally recognised travel document would be a

Editor Sadiq Abdullateef Deputy Editor Kazeem Akintunde Editorial Board Safiya M. Adamu, Chairman Christian Ochiama, Deputy Chairman Standards Aniebo Nwamu, Director ’Lara Olugbemi, Assistant Director

welcome development, to the extent that it is recognised by other countries and agencies.

What this entails, in our view, is that the commission, in its effort to achieve this goal, must not lose sight of the fact that it must strive to gain for it the acceptance of others across borders. To bring this about, it must liaise with the nation’s aviation and immigration authorities to ensure that its usage is included in all bilateral agreements.

We also urge the commission to guard against the challenges the nation’s passport is facing as an internationally recognised travel document. Some of these challenges include the possibility of forgery, which is threatening to make nonsense of the nation’s passport. Criminals and illegal aliens are known to carry the document obtained through illegal means, thereby jeopardising the nation’s security.

The commission, we insist, must be strict on the issue of who is qualified to carry the document by streamlining in a most rigorous manner the process of obtaining it, because the image of the nation is at stake in the event that it falls into the hands of unscrupulous elements.

Founder Sam Nda-Isaiah Chairman Hajiya Ireti Kingibe Group Managing Director Azubuike Ishiekwene Group Executive Directors Michael Okpere Dr Kazeem Durodoye Divisional Directors Iyobosa Uwugiaren Ademola Oladosu Salisu Alhassan Bichi General Managers Aminu Abubakar Sule Abdulmumin Balogun Zipporah D. Tanko Joy Adekanye

Leadership Holdings

Managing Director Abraham Nda-Isaiah Executive Director Nnamdi Samuel New York Office Mohammed Bello Shehu London Office Dr Bello Salihu Johannesburg Office Abiodun Oguntuase

LEADERSHIP is a national paper symbolically embedded in the nation’s capital.

We shall stand up for good governance. We shall defend the interest of Nigerian people even against their rulers, and we shall raise our pen at all times in defence of what is right. These are the values by which we intend to be assessed.

We shall never, ever for any reason forget the noble reason of our coming into being: For God and country!

4 news extra

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Group News Editor: Tony Amokeodo APC Commends Pastor Adeboye For Dissociating Self, Church From Offensive Audio CD The All Progressives Congress (APC) has commended the General Overseer (GO) of the Redeem Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, for dissociating himself and the church from the offensive and divisive audio CD that is being circulated by certain political pastors.

In a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said by his action, the GO has again exhibited his characteristic exceptional leadership and shown what religion should be about, which is love, rather than hate and incendiary statements.

It particularly expressed satisfaction that the GO specifically asked the RCCG pastors to ignore the contents of the audio CD, especially all the references to political parties, including the APC. “The GO’s statement, in his response to the APC which had written to protest the divisive and corrosive statements contained in the audio CD, which has been smuggled into some RCCG parishes, made it clear that the RCCG is neutral and apolitical, and that he prays for all irrespective of political persuasion or creed.

“We in the APC are delighted at the GO’s prompt action and statement that the RCCG did not endorse divisive comments in any form or shape, that it has sons and daughters in all political parties, and that the allegations contained in the audio CD are wickedly false, unsubstantiated, ill-conceived and mischievous. ‘’Equally satisfying is the GO’s directive asking everyone in possession of the audio CDs to return them, and the directive to the church’s pastors to communicate such to their respective congregations immediately,’’ APC said.

On the obviously-sponsored audio CD, produced by one pastor Bosun Emmanuel, the party wondered why a man of God would engage in outright lies to propagate hatred, incite Christians against Muslims so brazenly, as if the adherents of both religions were not children of the same God, and then use the platform of the church to campaign for the PDP while seeking to destroy the APC. “In a country where the citizenry, whether Christians or Muslims, have been shortchanged by greedy, selfish and clueless political leadership, a pastor went on record as saying President Goodluck Jonathan has performed 100 per cent, while at the same time de-

monising and denigrating the APC as an ‘Islamic Party’ without a scintilla of proof,”the party added.

By George Okojie, Lagos

Servicemen of the pro-Ukrainian St. Maria Battalion taking part in military exercices near the Eastern Ukrainian City of Mariupol, yesterday. PHOTO BY AFP

Emir Sanusi Reshuffles Palace, Elavates Late Bayero’s Son

By Abubakar Salihi, Kano

Emir of Kano Muhammad Sanusi II, has elevated the late Bayero’s son, Aminu Ado Bayero, to the position of Wambai and Ahmad Ado Bayero to Sarkin Dawakin Tsakar Gida.

Besides, the son of late Tijjani Hashim, Galadiman Kano was appointed the Dan Isan Kano. Emir Sanusi announced the reshufflement at his palace over the weekend.

The appointment and reshufflement followed the death of

Tijjani Hashim, Galadiman Kano, which allows for the vacant post to be filled.

The position of Wambai which is the second in the hierarchy among emir’s sons would now be occupied by the late Bayero’s son, Alhaji Aminu Ado Bayero, who until his elevation, occupied the post of Sarkin Dawakin Tsakar Gida.

Ahmad Ado Bayero would now relinguish his former position of Tafida to Abdullahi Sanusi, uncle to Emir Sanusi II.

Also, the son of late Tijjani Hashim, Galadiman Kano, Barde Tijjani Hashim, was appointed to the position of Dan Isan Kano, a former position occupied by Abdullahi Sanusi, uncle to the present Emir of Kano.

However, the senior councilor in the emirate, Alhaji Abbas Sanusi, another uncle to Emir Sanusi II, was elevated to the position of Galadiman Kano, the most senior position among the emir’s sons hierarchy.

Abbas Sanusi succeeded the late Tijjani Hashim, Galadiman Kano who died last week.

Meanwhile, despite challenges posed by insecurity, Emir Sanusi has performed the colourful Hawan Daushe.

Emir Sanusi had in the company of his district heads, palace guards, and protocols performed the Hawan Daushe, a journey from his house to ‘Babban Daki,’ a traditional house where every emir’s mother used to live in.

Shettima Nupe, Makama Minna Pass On

As Emir of Kontagora loses son

BY Abu NMODU, MINNA

The Shettima Nupe, Alhaji Sallah Shettima, and the Makama Minna, Alhaji Isiaka Sani, passed on yesterday.

This is also as the Emir of Kontagora, Alhaji Saidu Namaska, lost his son, Abubakar, over the weekend.

The late Shettima Nupe, who is a prominent member of Bida

Emirate Council died in the early hours of yesterday at the age of 63 years.

He was survived by wives and children as well as brothers among whom is Alhaji Bako Shetima, the governorship candidate of CPC in 2011 in Niger State.

The late Shettima Nupe was the direct son of late reknowned civil servant, Bagudu Shettima, former chairman of the federal civil service commission.He was educated at both London and the

United States of where he bagged BSC and Msc in industrial technology.

Meanwhile, Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu has condoled with the emir of Kontagora.

Aliyu in a signed statement by his chief press secretary, Israel Ebije , also condoled with the emir of Minna .

The governor described the deaths as painful, but urged the emirs and people of Kontagora and Minna emirate to see it as an act of God, adding that every

soul must die.

“At a time like this, all we should do is to pray for the peaceful repose of the departed. We cannot question the will of Allah SWT, He gives and He takes as he wishes. It is therefore my prayer that the departed rest in peace.

“Let me therefore appeal to everybody to always be at peace with God and man. We must continue to imbibe good character which serves as a panacea for peace and development in the society, Aliyu added.”

NEWS 5

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

LIVING LIVING TOTO BE BE 100100

One health tip daily

Make Sure All Family Members Use Computers Safely Jonathan

Troops Reclaim Michika, Kill 100 Boko Haram

By Bayo Oladeji, George Agba, Edegbe Odemwingie, Abuja Mohammed Ismail, Yola; Ndahi Marama and Kareem Haruna,

Maiduguri

A fierce battle is ongoing between Boko Haram insurgents and Nigerian troops who have been intensifying efforts to reclaim territories captured by the insurgents in northern Adamawa.

Reports indicate that about 100 insurgents have been killed in the latest offensive as Nigerian troops forced the terrorists out of Michika town which had been under their bloody grip for close to a month.

The Nigerian troops are reportedly advancing towards Gulak in consolidation of the successes they have recorded but the insurgents were reported to have regrouped and launched an offensive against them, leading to the fierce battle between the two sides.

A source in Michika said Nigerian troops had entered the town following a phenomenal success they recorded against the insurgents who suffered severe casualties, forcing the surviving ones beat a retreat.

“The Nigerian troops have gained entry into Michika and are now fully in control of the town, having dealt a severe blow to the insurgents, as they lost about 100 members; some escaped with injuries sustained from gun shots,” the source said.

Another source from the area said Nigerian troops were facing a stiff resistance from the insurgents as they advanced towards Gulak, leading to prolonged battle as Boko Haram

had deployed many insurgents and ammunition to confront the troops.

“There is heavy fighting between the insurgents and Nigerian troops as the insurgents are doing everything to frustrate the efforts of the Nigerian troops, and many people who are trapped in the towns are now sneaking out following intensified fighting,” the source said.

Jonathan Heads To Niger In Search Of Solution President Goodluck Jonathan will today leave Abuja for Niamey, the capital of Niger Republic, on a one-day official visit to participate in an extraordinary summit of heads of states and governments of the Lake Chad Basin Commission.

According to a statement by presidential spokesman, Dr Reuben Abati, Jonathan and other participating heads of states and governments are expected to review ongoing collaboration against terrorism and agree on further joint actions to curb terrorism and insurgency within and across their national boundaries.

Abati recalled that the president and the heads of states and governments of the neighbouring countries of Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin Republic had resolved at a meeting in Paris in May this year to intensify joint efforts to curtail terrorism and violent extremism.

“At the Paris Summit hosted

by President Francois Hollande of France in the aftermath of the dastardly abduction ➔ CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

If you’re a man, don’t use Wi-Fi with the computer in your lap as it may adversely affect your sperm and fertility! Consider

wired over wireless technology, and set up a network for your household computer using the electrical system.

Arms Deal: FG, South Africa Row Over Another $5.7m Seizure

Dasuki FROM FRONT PAGE

cuting Authority seized the $5.7 million (about N952 million) for allegedly being the proceeds of illegal transactions.

The newspaper had in the first S$9.3 million three weeks ago reported that documents in its possession showed the first consignment was personally signed off by the National Security Adviser, Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd) who issued the end-user certificate for the transaction.

But in a swift reaction, Dasuki has described the latest transaction as a legitimate deal.

City Press noted in its report that the latest transaction was between Cerberus Risk Solutions, an arms broker in Cape Town, and Societe D’Equipments Internationaux, said to be a Nigerian company based in Abuja.

It added that deal fell apart when Cerberus, which had earlier received R60 million (N1.02 billion) from Nigeria in its account at Standard Bank, attempted to repay the money after it was unable to resolve its registration formalities with the South African authorities.. Sources told Rapport that Cerberus apparently tried to pay the money back to the Nigerian company, after which the bank became suspicious.

Faulting the report, Col. Dasu-

South African President Jacob Zuma

ki argued that the whole transaction followed due process since it involved a legitimate company, saying the incident was the handiwork of some saboteurs within the system.

Reacting through the spokesman of his office, Mr. Karounwi Adebisi, the NSA wondered why the South Africa could not reciprocate the gesture of the Nigerian government which provides enabling environment to some of their companies based here in Nigeria.

He said: “We want to state clearly that a business transaction actually took place between a legitimate company in Nigeria and another legitimate company in South Africa through a bank. In the course of events, the South African could not perform and decided to refund the money. What is illegitimate in this transaction done through the bank?”

He noted Nigeria provides enabling environment for South African companies like MTN, DSTV and a host of others to do business unhindered, and wondered why South Africa would not reciprocate this noble gesture.

“There is no alternative; we must win the war against insurgency, irrespective of the demeaning activities of fifth columnists,” he insisted.

6 NEWS

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Troops Reclaim Michika, Kill 100 Boko Haram FROM PAGE 5

of the Chibok College girls, President Jonathan and neighbouring heads of states and governments also agreed to establish joint antiterrorism patrols and a system of sharing intelligence to support operations against terrorists and other crossborder criminals,” he noted.

Abati noted that Benin Republic, which participated in the Paris Summit but is not a member of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, had been invited to the Niamey talks.

“President Jonathan who will be accompanied to Niamey by the minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Aminu Wali, the minister of State for Defence Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, the Chief of Defence Staff Air Chief Marshall Alex Barde and other senior government officials will return to Abuja at the conclusion of the one-day summit,” he added.

The Lake Chad Basin Commission was established in 1964 by Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon with the mandate of sustainably and equitably managing shared water resources of the Lake Chad Basin and promoting regional integration, peace and security across the Basin.

NAF Acquires More Aircraft To Fight Terrorism - CAS The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has purchased some new and refurbished aircraft to sustain the tempo against the terrorists in the North East with a view to restoring permanent peace and stability in the area.

The good news was disclosed by the Chief of Air Staff (CAS) Air Marshal Adesola Amosu in Abuja at the reception in his honour for the National Award of the Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR) by President Goodluck Jonathan in commemoration of the 54th Independence Anniversary.

Speaking at the reception held at the NAF Conference Centre and Suite, Kado, Abuja, the CAS disclosed that some new and reactivated platforms would soon arrive the country to join the aircraft in the NAF inventory, just as he maintained that there was the need to effect some changes in the current NAF Mission Statement to encompass the acquisition of the new platforms.

He expressed NAF’s determination to bring to conclusion the insurgency in the northeast region as soon as possible.

Air Marshal Amosu further

reiterated the determination of NAF leadership to ensure that the Service was better positioned for greater performance and set a new focus toward national security.

He used the occasion to thank President Jonathan for finding him worthy to bag the prestigious national award of CFR. He dedicated the award to the officers and men of the NAF who were fighting the insurgency in the northeast, noting that “their gallant efforts and sacrifices deserve greater honour.”

Boko Haram Has Seized 185 churches – Catholic Church The director of Catholic Social Communication of Maiduguri Diocese, Rev. Gideon Obasogie, has said that two months after the capture of 11 towns in Borno and Adamawa states by Boko Haram, 185 churches in the diocese have been torched and 190, 545 people displaced, with surviving residents unable to return to their houses and places of worship.

Obasogie made this disclose yesterday in a statement entitled “State of Captured Towns” and made available to newsmen in Maiduguri, the state capital.

According to the statement, the “ransacking and torching” of churches in the captured towns and villages have already displaced many priests and lay faithful who are taking refuge in either Yola or Maiduguri metropolis in the last few weeks.

He described the capturing of towns along with the torching of about 185 places of worship as “sad, heart aching and potentially dangerous to the territorial integrity and common good of Nigeria.”

According to the church, “It is over 30 days now that our church communities in Gulak, Shuwa, Michika, Bazza, etc, were sacked by the callous attacks of the Boko Haram terrorists while Gwoza and Magadali had been under the tyrannical and despotic control of the terrorists and this is almost the 60th day.

“Our priests are displaced, while citizens who were supposed to celebrate their independence as a free nation were rather counting their losses and regrets as they had been reduced to the status of internally displaced persons (IDPs).”

Dozens Of Soldiers Feared Killed As Boko Haram Aims To Capture Hometown Of

Badeh

CDS Reports from the border town of Mubi in Adamawa State indicate that dozens of soldiers are feared killed as insurgents ambushed the troops in the latest attack.

A fierce battle has reportedly ensued between the insurgents and Nigerian troops for the control of Vimtim, the hometown of the present chief of defence staff (CDS) Alex Badeh.

It was reported that in their bid to capture the hometown of the CDS, the insurgents deployed many helicopters against Nigerian troops, giving them an edge in the fight.

Mubi, which is close to Vimtim, was thrown into confusion as residents panicked on sighting fleeing soldiers and began to scamper in different directions, with many moving out of the town.

The development came less than 48 hours after Nigerian troops vanquished the insurgents from Michika where they killed about 100 of the insurgents with the remainders retreating into the nearby bushes.

About 300 insurgents were said to have regrouped following the initial setback they encountered and launched an offensive against the Nigerian troops which led to a sustained battle that lasted for hours.

Eye witnesses in Mubi said the dead and the injured among the soldiers have been taken to Mubi Specialist Hospital.

A fleeing resident of Mubi said he and others were forced to escape the area as a result of the massive casualties recorded by the Nigerian troops.

“I carried six fleeing soldiers who are running from the

Minimah

warfront in my car. They first asked me to assist them with my dress which they used as a camouflage before we left,” the source said.

11,100 Dead From Boko Haram Attacks - Report The Nigeria Social Violence Dataset, now publicly available, reports that since July 2009 when the Boko Haram conflict escalated, at least 11,100 people have died on both sides of the insurgency.

The levels of casualties, internal displacement, social disruption and government failure are fomenting a widespread crisis, spilling over the borders of neighbouring states such as Niger, Cameroon and Chad, the report says.

According to the new dataset compiled at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Boko Haram-related violence is the most lethal conflict that Nigeria has confronted in decades and that deaths attributable to Boko Haram has been increasing over time, but this increase has been particularly sharp in the past year.

The report said that since 1998, at least 29,600 Nigerians have been killed in more than 2,300 incidents, reflecting a wide range of ethnic, religious, political and economic tensions across large portions of the country.

“The conflict is rapidly intensifying. We estimate that 7,000 people died in incidents related to the insurgency between July 2013 and June 2014, compared with fewer than 1,900 in the preceding year. These deaths account for more than a quarter of all the recorded deaths in the past 15

years.

“Since January, more than 5,000 people have died, making the past eight months almost as deadly as the preceding five years,” it said.

Boko Haram attacks Borno villages, slaughters 7 top traders, others Members of the Boko Haram sect hacve attacked Ngamdu village of Borno State, beheading at least seven prominent businessmen, security sources said.

The gunmen had, on the same day, also attacked Mobbar village where they also killed a number of village heads there.

The assailants, who invaded the village, which is about 100km away from Maiduguri and 35km away from the neighbouring Yobe State capital, Damaturu, were very specific in their mission as they targeted only top businessmen.

Security operatives in Ngamdu village said the terrorists crept upon the villagers at about 4am to carry out the killings.

Ngamdu is also a border town of Borno near a village in Yobe State called Kukareta, where a recently established military formation is located.

“They did not attack everyone in Ngamdu; they just selected some top business merchants there and slaughtered them in the early hours of today (Monday)”, said Abba Gava, a chieftain of the Vigilante Group of Nigeria, Borno State.

“We have also heard that they were attacking Mobbar village today also, but we have no knowledge of the casualty figures yet, even though those attacked and managed to escape said it was a massive attack.”

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

news extra 7

2015: Jonathan Desperate To Retain Power – Oyegun As Ijaw youths declare for APC The national chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC) yesterday lamented that in spite of failed numerous promises made to Nigerians by President Goodluck Jonathan-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the country’s ship is being steered by a leadership that has completely lost steam and desperate to continue in power.

The first civilian governor of Edo State, who spoke at his GRA residence while playing host to the leadership of Ijaw group from the South/South, under aegis of the Izon-Ibe Global Policy Network (IGPN), reiterated that the country cannot survive another four years of Jonathan’s administration.

Spokesperson for the group, Ogun State governor Ibikunle Amosun (2nd left), his wife Olufunso (left), Awujale and paramount ruler of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Dennis Ayubaluyefa, who led the Kayode Adetona (2nd right) and the special guest of honour and former chief of army staff, Lt. Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (right), at group’s members which cut across the 2014 Ojude Oba Festival in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, yesterday. the states in the South-South region, declared that “having being dissatisfied and discomfited with the antics, whims and caprices of the ruling party at the top, we have resolved to liaise and associate ourselves to this great party that is under the leadership of Chief John Odigie Oyegun”.

It further noted that the list of fineries and or Global Traders, and Nigeria.

Oyegun, while commending By Nse Anthony-Uko, Abuja According to a statement signed that the Lavi International Corp has local and international companies the courage and commitment The management of the Nigerian of the group even in the face of National Petroleum Corporation by NNPC group general manager, the power and authority to sell or duly approved as NNPC’s crude oil harassment and intimidation, (NNPC) has raised the alarm over Group Public Affairs Division, Ohi otherwise deal with the Bonny Light off-takers for the 2014-2015 Term said: “The biggest issue facing our the circulation of fake letters of au- Alegbe, a paragraph in one of the crude oil, the subject of those con- Contract Period had been widely publicised and called on members nation today really is that we are thorisation purportedly from the fake letters of authorisation in cir- tractual agreements.” of the public to avail themselves culation reads: The NNPC, however, stated that now saddled with a party and with NNPC to buy and/or sell Nigerian of such information to avoid being “We hereby confirm that the NiMessrs Lavi International Corp is a president who have totally run out crude oil. gerian National Petroleum Corpora- not one of its crude oil off-takers duped by unscrupulous elements. of steam and ideas, and there is no The Corporation yesterday called “Meanwhile, we are working question about that. Everything on members of the public to be wary tion (NNPC) has entered into con- for the 2014-2015 Term Contract closely with relevant security agenPeriod and, therefore, has not been tractual arrangements directly with that is going on today and the of persons with fraudulent intents cies to track and bring to book all allocated any crude oil volume as Lavi International Corp to supply vulgarity of the campaign going on circulating letters authorising the those behind these nefarious activspeculated in the fake letter of auBonny Light crude oil to the Lavi - whether it is TAN, gives us that lifting of Bonny Light crude oil from ities,” he said. thorisation.

International Corp Associated Resingular impression of a party that has reached the end of the road and has nothing else to offer.

“And they know that it is only in retention of power that will make that possible and it is ready to go any length whatsoever just state, Mr. Emmanuel Bello, No, he is resting in Abuja to retain power and not to bring told LEADERSHIP on phone – Suntai’s Aide hopes to the lives of the people they that Suntai was not missing. are governing. Because retaining He explained that goverpower is the only protection that

By Andrew Ojih, Jalingo nor Suntai was doing well they think they have. and would soon return to the The acting governor of Tara“We are so happy to see state to continue his business ba State, Alhaji Garba Umar, youths, particularly from your of governance. has disclosed that his princienvironment, doing what you are “Since our dear governor repal, Governor Danbaba Dandoing because this country needs to turned from his medical trip, fulani Suntai, is missing. be salvaged, and I have said it before he has been at the Governor’s Umar, who stated this yesthat the country cannot survive Lodge, otherwise called T.Y. terday in Jalingo during a meanother fours year of PDP under the Danjuma House, located at Umar dia chat with journalists, said Suntai current environment. Some of their Asokoro in Abuja,” Bello said. that he had not set his eyes national wing, I rushed to the lah was peaceful; peace has goons have tried to misinterpret He stressed that the acton his boss, Governor Sun- place to receive him, but he returned to some of the cri- ing governor, Umar, was only that to mean if APC does not win, tai, since he was smuggled was in a jeep which immedi- sis areas in the state. And I waiting for this tenure to Nigeria will collapse, no. into the country by a certain ately drove him to T.Y. Danju- have also constituted a rec- elapse, and that after the ex“It is clear that we are heading cabal. towards anarchy and there is no onciliation committee to en- piration of Suntai’s adminisma Lodge,” he said.

“Few of my aides and I were question about that, but thank He added that the cabal, sure that those who fled their tration that brought him as already at the domestic wing which surrounded the ail- homes because of crisis re- deputy governor, he would God that our security forces are of the airport to receive my ing Suntai, was holding him turn,” he noted. finally sitting up in the north east pack his luggage out of Govboss but, unknowingly to me, hostage in order to hold onto after the so-called revolt by the rank He assured sons and daugh- ernment House. the cabal was already wait- power to the detriment of his ters of the state that his adand file after their wives came out Efforts to speak with Goving at the international wing health. to protest against sending their ministration would contin- ernor Suntai’s senior special of the airpot where the plane husband to untimely death after it He called on citizens of state ue to work to ensure that all adviser on media and publicconveying my boss was direct- to eschew religious differenc- Tarabans enjoys the dividend ity, Mr. Slyvanus Giwa, were was clear that there were so many ed to land. fifth columnists even in the military es and work towards unity in of democracy. futile as his telephone lines When I got to know that the state. such that Nigeria was beginning to However, a former commis- were not going through at the the plane landed at the interlose territory.”

“I thank God this year’s sal- sioner for information in the time of filing this report.

Crude Oil Lifting: NNPC Raises Alarm Over Fake Authorisation Letters

Taraba Acting Governor Declares Suntai Missing

By Patrick Ochoga, Benin City

8 News north-central

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Saraki: I’ll Make My Stand On Presidential Race Known Soon

By Abdullahi Olesin, Ilorin

The chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Dr. Bukola Saraki said he would make public his rumoured presidential ambition within the next few weeks.

But he assured that contrary to speculations, the contest for the presidential ticket of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) will not lead to its disintegration as all stakeholders had agreed that the race would be beyond self interest but focused on the larger interest of Nigeria.

Saraki told newsmen in Ilorin, Kwara State that he had met personally with two of the frontline contenders for the ticket, General Muhammad Buhari and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and that both have given assurance that they would support whoever among them is picked as the par-

short news

Sallah: FG Advised On Peace, Security An NGO, global network for peace in Nigeria (GNPN) has enjoined Nigerians to use this Sallah season to advance peace, unity, tolerance and mutual dialogue while shunning acts of violence thuggery, banditry, armed robbery and other anti-social vices.

The group in a statement jointly signed by its national coordinator and director mobilisation, Ambassador Okpebholo and Prince Mbanaso respectively commended the government in its continued effort to combat the Boko Haram insurgency.

Blessing Ukemena, Abuja

ty’s flag bearer for the 2015 race.

The former Kwara State governor who expressed delight over the manner people have been calling on him to contest for the ticket said Nigerians must understand the sacrifices being made by leaders of the APC to make Nigeria work again, pointing out that it would have been more beneficial to their personal welfare to support the ruling government.

He said, “Very soon I will make my position on the issue of whether I will or will not contest the 2015 presidential election known in the next couple of weeks. I appreciate the demands that I have seen coming from different parts of the country on this issue. I believe that 2015 for a lot of us is all about Nigeria; it is about the sacrifices that we will have to make and we will be taking those decisions based on the necessary sacrifices. The key thing is that we must rescue Nigeria.

Basin Authority To Cultivate 10,000 Hectares Of Rice, Sugar Cane The Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority (LNRBDA) is to irrigate 10,000 hectares in Kwara and Kogi states for the cultivation of rice and sugar cane.

LNRBDA managing director, Mr Niyi Afolayan, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Ilorin.

He said that the N3.5 billion contract for the irrigation project had been awarded and would also cover 3,800 hectares at Tada/Shonga.

He said when completed, the Tada/Shonga irrigation project would produce enough rice to feed the nation.

Afolayan said that Kampe Dam between Kabba and Lokoja would irrigate 4,200 hectares for rice and sugar cultivations.

He said that the Kampe Dam is unique because of its location on a higher elevation on the River Niger, adding that its water flows through gravity to the field.

He said unlike most dams, the dam does not need electrical or mechanical force to drive irrigation water.

By Christiana Nwaogu, Abuja

short news

Ebola Virus: Group Wants FG To Tighten Border The federal government has been advised to intensify efforts in tightening the nation’s border to ensure that the ebola virus now under control is not re-introduced by foreigners.

The PDP Core Supporters Network, in a statement signed by its national coordinator, Otunba Adewale, and the youth leader Hon. Chinedu Mbanaso commended the federal government for the steps taken to prevent the spread of the disease.

“We appreciate the proactive steps taken by President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in checkmating the spread of the virus, reflecting its commitment to the welfare of the Nigerian people.

By Ejike Ejike, Abuja

Surveyor-General of the Federation, Prof Peter Nwilo, signing the condolence register of the former managing director, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mrs Oluremi Oyo, at the NAN headquarters in Abuja, yesterday. PHOTO BY NAN.

Niger Guber: Gov Aliyu Insists On Zoning Arrangement BY abu nmodu, Minna

Amidst speculations that some politicians in the state are set to work against the zoning arrangement in the state Niger State governor, Dr Muazu Babngida Aliyu has said that every well meaning person from the state should work for the success of the zoning arrangement.

Aliyu who was in Kontagora yesterday said that the zoning arrangement in the state has always been the political stabilising force in the state and should

not be discarded as being allegedly planned by some political forces in the state.

The governor therefore solicited the support of the emir of Kotangora, Alhaji Saidu Namaska who has the largest emirate in Niger north that is expected to produce the next governor to rally his people to work towards making sure the next governor in 2015 elections is from the zone.

Governor Aliyu said, “We must work within the confines of the existing zoning arrangement in

Niger State. There is rumour that some politicians are planning to present a governorship candidate to counter the existing arrangement. We must eschew the rumour and if it becomes real, unanimously counter the plot.”

He told the people of Kontagora and Borgu emirate councils located in the zone producing the next governor to have harmonised arrangement to avoid having challenges at the polls.

He said the political arrangement is for Kontagora emirate to produce the next governor.

Former APC Chairman Asks Buhari To Reconsider Presidential Ambition

BY DONATUS NADI, Lafia

The immediate past chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nasarawa State, Mr. Stanley Buba, has called on Gen. Mohammadu Buhari to reconsider his presidential aspiration in the overall interest of the party ahead of 2015 general elections.

Buba who stated this in Akwanga yesterday said although Buhari is widely perceived as an upright corruption crusader

his repeated failure to clinch the presidential mandate calls for a change of tactics in the interest of the common good and collective prosperity of Nigerians.

He urged Buhari to throw his weight behind any of the aspirants who shares his ideology and is capable of dealing with leadership challenges the nation has been plunged into following years of misrule from both military and civilian administrations.

“Buhari is widely respected

because he is seen as an upright person with a pro-poor ideology so he should shelve his ambition for now and support any candidate he feels shares the same ideology as him to enable the APC realise its ambitionin 2015” he said.

He warned that except the aspirants shelve their personal ambitions for the most saleable candidate, the APC will find it difficult to deliver the goods at the general elections next year.

Capacity Building: Institute To Train Civil Servants, Boost Professionalism

By Christiana Nwaogu, Abuja

As part of efforts at addressing civil service capacity problems, employees holding positions on the government payroll in ministries, agencies and departments will henceforth undergo capacity building training programmes at the Public Service Institute

of Nigeria (PSIN).

The administrator of the institute, Shehu Misau made this known weekend, when he hosted the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Danladi Kifaci.

Misau said the reform programme which is aimed at creating a new opportunity for improving the way civil servic-

es have functioned, as well as restoring capacity in the public service will be done in partnership with the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation He recalled that such trainings have boosted and promoted professionalism through human resource development.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

news north-East, north-west 9 Insecurity: Nigeria’s Survival Under Threat – Bishop Bagobiri

Gov Yero Urges Religious Tolerance

By Aliyu Yusuf, Zaria

Governor of Kaduna State, Muktar Yero yesterday urged Muslims and Christians to embrace and tolerate one another to guarantee sustainable socio-economic development.

He stated this yesterday when he paid Sallah homage on the emir of Zazzau, Alhaji Shehu Idris in his palace in Zaria as part

of activities to mark the Eid-elKabir.

He described peace as a critical factor towards attainment of sustainable growth and development, hence the need to do everything possible to encourage it.

Yero assured that government had put all necessary measures in place to ensure adequate security of lives and property across the state.

While urging people to give security agencies maximum cooperation, Yero appealed to them to rally round the present administration at all levels to attract more democratic dividends.

On politics, the governor said every citizen has the right to vote for candidate(s) of his or her choice and “there is no compulsion in politics.”

He reminded people of the

need to ensure regular environmental hygiene to avoid contracting diseases.

Responding, the emir thanked Yero for the visit and promised to extend the needed support to government to enable it succeed.

He appealed for peace, tolerance and understanding among the people of diverse ethno-religious difference for societal development.

Adamawa State APC candidate for Saturday’s governorship byelection, Sen. Bindow Jibrilla, acknowledging cheers from party supporters at a rally in Fufore local government area, yesterday.

PDP Women Leader Faults APC Over Campaign Strategy

BY Ankeli Emmanuel, Sokoto

Sokoto State Women Leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Hajiya Kulu Abdullahi Rabah has warned APC leadership to desist from using lies and religious propaganda against PDP in their quest to win political sympathy and support from Sokoto State women groups.

Hajiya Kulu Rabah in a statement made available to LEADERSHIP in Abuja, yesterday, stated this while receiving hundreds of PDP women from all the 23 local government of the state who paid her Sallah visit in Sokoto.

She accused the leadership of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Sokoto State of using religious propaganda against PDP and its leaders in order to garner support from the public especially rural women.

She said, “The APC lies and propaganda will not deter our women of the state from showing their loyalty and support to the development and success of PDP in Sokoto State.”

She assured women that PDP is the only political party that mapped out the best programmes that are women friendly and have direct bearing to

their lives.

She said PDP is bringing change and progress to the women in the state through co-operation, empowerment and educational opportunity in order to make the women relevant politically and ensure the sustenance of their lives through self-reliance.

Hajiya Rabah said, “Our party is friendly to women, we are safe and protected with dignity in this party. Why then should we associate with those who relegates us behind and see us as liability?”

She commended the efforts of

PDP leader in the state Mukhtar Shehu Shagari for his loyalty to the party and contribution to the rural women which has eased their Sallah celebration.

She also assured the women support and loyalty to former Governor Attahiru Bafarawa, over his leadership of the party and assured him of women’s support in the election.

Speaking earlier, the leader of the delegation, Hajiya Asmau Bello Dandare described PDP as the progressive party for the survival of women dignity and assured of their support for the success of party in 2015 elections.

2015: Groups Endorse Shagari For Sokoto Guber

By Ankeli Emmanuel, Sokoto

As a number of aspirants continue to indicate interest in succeeding incumbent governor of Sokoto State, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko in 2015, no fewer than 1,545 support groups in the state have endorsed the state deputy governor, Alhaji Mukhtari Shagari for the 2015 governorship election.

Speaking on behalf of the members of Mukhtari Network who paid Sallah homage to the deputy governor in his residence, chairman of the group, Mallam Mahammadu Dealer said, they have confidence in the leadership qualities of Shagari to effectively govern the state come 2015.

While insisting that the people of the state are in dire need of purposeful leadership that

would yield tangible benefits to the people, Mahammadu Dealer maintained that Shagari’s experience in administration would guarantee the needed purposeful leadership.

Earlier, the deputy governor assured that he is the next governor of the state saying that he is going to win in 2015 and his detractors would be disappointed.

Declaring his support for Pres-

ident Goodluck Jonathan’s 2015 re-election bid, Shagari said, he has no reason to betray the PDP. He said, “Some people are saying that I cannot win election but whether they like it or not

by God’s grace, I will become the governor of Sokoto in 2015.”

The deputy governor further assured of fairness and justice to all residents of the state irrespective of tribe or religion.

The Catholic Bishop of Kafanchan Diocese in Kaduna State, Bishop Joseph Bagobiri yesterday said that Nigeria’s continual survival as a nation is under threat unless something urgent is done to stop the wanton killings and destruction of property in the country.

Bishop Bagobiri who spoke at the occasion of a special home coming and thanks giving service of the former group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Andy Yakubu, said Christians must do everything within their powers to protect their lives from being snuff-off by Satanist driven Islamic organisations like Boko Haram and ISIS. According to him, “Unless the current lethargic mentality of government and its security apparatus in confronting the evil of insurgency is halted, our future as a people and a united nation is not only bleak but doomed.”

Bishop Bagobiri also described Southern Kaduna traditional rulers, political class, and retired senior military of betraying their people.

According to him, their continual silence over killings in Southern Kaduna is a sign of irresponsibility and betrayal.

By Midat Joseph, Kaduna

400 Farmers Benefit From Support Scheme In Bauchi No fewer than 400 fish farmers have benefited from the Aquaculture Value Chain initiative of the federal government’s Growth Enhancement Support scheme (GES) in Bauchi State.

The director of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in the state, Alhaji Mohammed Yusuf, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Bauchi.

Yusuf explained that under the scheme, each farmer received 500 fingerlings free and five bags of feeds at 50 per cent discount.

He said that the gesture was to create enabling environment for sustainable production of more than one million tonnes of fish annually.

According to him, this is to meet the projected annual demand of 2.6 million tonnes of fish in the country.

He said one of the objectives of the initiative was to enhance the local production capacity and turn the country’s from being a net importer of fish and fish products to a net exporter. ``The estimated local fish production in Nigeria currently stands at 600,000 tonnes. annually, while importation is estimated at more than 700,000 tonnes.

By NAN

10

stories of the Tuesday, October 7, 2014

...NEWS WITH A HUMAN FACE

ACCIDENT: 1 Dead, 17 Injured In Auto Crash The Federal Roads Safety Commission (FRSC) in Sokoto State said that one person died while 17 others sustained injuries in an accident that occurred between Sokoto and Sabon-garin Kwannawa yesterday.

Mr Kuteb Takum, the Sector Commander of the Commission in the state, who confirmed the accident, said the victims were returning from a ceremony in Sabon-garin Kwannawa-outskirt of Sokoto.

He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Sokoto that the vehicle Pickup van, marked Edo XF 739 BEN, somersaulted at the Sabon-garin Kwannawa Junction at about 10am. ``The driver of the vehicle, who is now on the run, lost the control of the vehicle while on Kwannawa- Sokoto highway. ``It was not a head on collision, the van somersaulted several times after the driver lost the control of the vehicle and veered off the road,’’ he said.

Takum said that one person died immediately while other sustained injuries.

He said that seven of the injured were receiving treatment at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto.

A man taking a nap under a fly-over bridge in Gwagwalada, Abuja, yesterday. PHOTO BY OGOH JOSEPH.

FRAUD: Clearing Agent Disappears With N3.5m

By Kola Eke-Ogiugo, Asaba

THEFT: Man Bags 4 Months For Stealing Phone

By Abdullahi Olesin, Ilorin

An Ilorin magistrates court has sentenced one Popoola Ademola, 22, to four months imprisonment for theft.

Magistrate M. K. Aluko, who gave the judgement, convicted Ademola, who was arraigned before the court for theft contrary to section 287 of penal code law.

The convict was charged for snatching H.T.C handset valued at N54, 000 belonging to one Ameenat Issah of No. 94, Edun street, Ilorin, Kwara state.

According to the Police First Information Report (FIR), the victim (Ameenat Issah) had reported at SARS office, Ilorin alleging that the convict snatched her handset while on her way from a friend’s place.

The FIR explained that the complainant raised alarm for assistance and the convict was pursued and arrested by the good Samaritans around the area. The FIR said Ademola confessed to the crime.

“Investigation conducted at SARS office revealed that the suspect is of questionable character without reasonable means of livelihood and that he committed the alleged offence,” the FIR said.

Trouble is currently brewing at a popular motor transport company in Asaba, Delta State following the sudden disappearance of a 41-year-old clearing agent, identified as Friday Oboh with his client’s N3.5million.

Reports said that the agent, who also doubles as car dealer, could not be found for about a week now.

It was reliably gathered that the clearing agent allegedly obtained the said amount (N3.5million) on the pretext of assisting an importer to clear his goods, including some cars at the Lagos seaport.

Since he travelled to lagos, his whereabout has been unknown. Even, his mobile phone has also been switched off.

Speaking to our correspondent on the telephone, the client, who did not want his name in print said, “this clearing agent operates a car dealer company along Anwai road in Asaba where we met and discussed how he could assist me in clearing my goods including vehicles from the seaport in Lagos. After the N3.5million payment I made, he promise that in three days time he will be back in Lagos but since then I have not heard from him and his telephone lines have been switched off.

Sources close to the police A Division in Asaba confirmed that the police detectives have commenced investigation into the whereabout of the clearing agent and have arrested two of his workers who have made useful statements while the investigation continues.

Speaking to our correspondent, a senior police officer in the division who did not want his name in print said, “we are on top of the investigation as all the addresses given seems to have been fake.

The clearing agent is not known in any of the addresses but a team of police men have been dispatched to the seaport in Lagos for further investigation”.

FRAUD: Police Seal Off Illegal Orphanage Home

By Kola Eke-Ogiugo, Asaba

The police detectives in Asaba, Delta State, in collaboration with the vigilante group in Ndokwa East Local Government Area of the state, have sealed off an illegal orphanage home in Ashaka community and rescued no fewer than 33 children allegedly used for illegal business.

Reports said that the orphanage home (name withheld) has been used to dupe unsuspecting members of the public, especially those, in the community where it operates.

Sources said that most of the kids are

put for saole between N2million and N2.5million, depending on the gender.

But the Police Public Relations Officer in the State, DSP. Celestina Kalu, confirmed that the police detectives stormed the orphanage home based on observations and a tip-off including an unanimous petition, stating that the orphanage home operates sale of children, including human trafficking.

Speaking further, DSP Kalu disclosed that operators of the home (name withheld) have been arrested and are currently helping the police for further investigation, while the kids have given to their biological parents.

Abba

STORIES OF THE DAY 11

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

day

Photo News

BUNKERING: Man Arrested With Crude

BY ANAYO ONUKWUGHA, Port Harcourt

The ongoing war against oil theft in the Niger Delta region received a boost yesterday as the National Taskforce Against Illegal Importation, Smuggling of Goods and Small Arms (NATFORCE) arrested a man with 167 drums of crude oil.

The drums were stashed in a trailer with registration number Gombe XA 730 FKY while some were loaded in a white J5 bus with Lagos registration number LW605 AAA , all of which were tracked at Nonwa in Tai Local Government Area of Rivers State.

Rivers State chairman of NATFORCE, Engr. Emenike Ndubuisi, who disclosed this to newsmen in Port Harcourt, said while the driver of the two vehicles escaped arrest, the owner of the product, identified as Mr Wilson was whisked away by Joint Task Force, JTF. Ndubuisi said that the product could not be burnt at the scene of the arrest because “it is packed directly under a high tension NEPA cable which could cause a serious damage if it was set on fire”.

He however explained that though a

towing van was dispatched to tow the trailer to the 2nd Amphibious Brigade at Bori Camp, “the van development fault and had to be returned back to Isiokpo where it was brought.”

Ndubisi further explained that the business of oil theft in the Niger Delta region thrives because some politicians encourage it as “a way of empowering the jobless boys who they use as machineries for their political interest especially in election times.”

He thanked operatives of the JTF for always responding promptly to distress calls put across to them by the taskforce whenever the occasion arises.

Meanwhile, NATFORCE Commander in Eleme local government area of the state, Mr. Gladstone Ezekiel, said that the task force would do everything legally possible to ensure that oil theft in the state in particular was eliminated.

Ezekiel said, “We will go after oil criminals in the state and ensure that we smoke them out of business. We have had a lot of such cases in the past and the culprits have always been sent to the appropriate security agency for prosecution.”

DEATH: Clark Condoles With Galadima Of Kano Family

By Kunle Olasanmi, Abuja

Elder statesman and Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, has described the death of Galadima Kano, Alhaji Tijani Hashim, as very painful.

The Galadima of Kano died in his Abuja home yesterday. He was regarded as one of the most influential Prince of Kano, a philanthropist and adherent of culture and tradition whose influence was felt all over the country.

Clark said that he was in touch with the respected emir two days before his death and they both agreed to meet to discuss issues of national interest immediately after the Sallah celebration.

Clark noted that the late Galadima sent him gift and only for the man that brought the gift to call him a day later that the galadimaemir was dead.

The South-south leader said he had known the late Galadima for a very long time.

He said, “It is so sad to hear of the sudden passing away of our renowned Prince and good friend, Alhaji Tijani Hashim, Galadima Kano. It is particularly painful for me because the Galadima had just two days to his passing on, sent me a very nice gift; and when i called to thank him, he promised to visit me immediately after the Sallah holidays.”

L-R: Representative, Saving One Million Lives Initiative, Seyi Ibidapo; chief commercial officer, Airtel Nigeria, Maurice Newa; director, Grameen Foundation, David Hutchful and regional project manager, Mhealth Mobile for Development, Victor Ohuruogu, at the launch of Mobile Midwife and Dial a Doctor Services in Lagos. PHOTO by BENEDICT UWALAKA

Children having fun in a plastic boat at Wonderland Amusement Park in Abuja, yesterday.

Photo By Ogoh Joseph

L-R: Dr Rosemary Omo-Odudu, Dr Godfrey Emeana, local government inspector of NYSC, Kubwa Area Office Mrs J.S. Ogar, CDS supervisor Mrs H.O. Amodu, Dr Agbonlahor Osazee Joseph, Dr Kelechi Ikedum, Dr Linda Chukwumaru, Dr Amaka Adinkwuye and Miss I. Iheadum during Community Development Service Project organised by Dr Osazee.

CULTISM: Suspected Cult Members Kill 5, Wound Several Others

BY SAM EGWU, Lokoja

The Sallah celebration in Ankpa, Kogi State, was cut short following the attack on the area by suspected cult members.

LEADERSHIP reliably gathered in Ankpa that five persons where killed in the attack while several others were wounded.

One of the notorious leaders of the cult group, who led a squad that killed Sule Prince Bawa in Ankpa near Corpers

Lodge, was hacked down in the operation.

Police authorities told our reporter in Ankpa that most of the investigation are being thwarted by the intervention of some prominent personalities in the community.

A community leader in Ankpa, Mallam Suleiman Dauda, who spoke to journalists over the issue, said that until the elders are brought to book, there cannot be peace in the area.

A man kick-starting a tricycle at Wazobia Park in Gwagwalada, Abuja, yesterday.

12

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

FOR GOD AND COUNTRY

MISSING VEHICLE This is to notify the general public that a white-coloured Hyundai Sonata saloon car with registration number BWR 642 AH and chassis number KMHEB41BABA097759 belonging to LEADERSHIP Newspapers Group Ltd is missing. The vehicle was last seen with Hajiya Mariya Ibrahim Baba. Any person with useful information regarding the missing vehicle should please contact the nearest police station or LEADERSHIP Newspapers Group Ltd through this phone number: 07035782552 Signed: Management

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

13

14

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

business

N68bn

Access Bank Plc has said about 38 per cent of the proceeds of its proposed N68 billion rights issue would be channelled into its working capital

38% Of Access’ Rights Issue To Fund Working Capital

By Bukola Idowu and Olushola Bello, Lagos

Access Bank Plc has said about 38 per cent of the proceeds of its proposed N68 billion rights issue would be channelled into its working capital so as to increase its lending capacity and make the bank one of the top three banks in structured finance by 2017.

Speaking with journalists in Lagos, the chief financial officer of the bank, Seyi Kumapayi, explained that part of the proceeds of the rights issue would also go into branch expansion and

upgrade of its technology.

According to him, the bank plans to expand its branch network in the country particularly electronic banking halls.

Access Bank which has operations in eight other countries, plans to raise N68 billion and would be seeking shareholders’ approval next week Monday, October 16, 2014 to raise funds through a rights issue.

Kupmapayi noted that it was part of the bank’s fiveyear plan towards being the world’s most respected African bank by the year 2017.

L-R: Group managing director, Access Bank plc, Mr Hebert Wigwe; coordinating minister of the economy and minister of finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; Roula Khalaf of Financial Times (FT), and director-general of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Arunma Oteh, at the FT Africa Summit 2014 with a theme titled: “Consolidating the Continent’s Rise,” in London.

$10.8bn Oil Money: Audit Report Ready Soon – Okonjo-Iweala

BY NSE ANTHONY-UKO, Abuja

Co-ordinating minister for the economy and minister of finance, Dr Ngozi OKonjo-Iweala, has assured that the report of the audit into the unaccounted $10.8billion oil money would be ready soon.

OKonjo-Iweala spoke at the Financial Times Africa Summit 2014 with the theme: “Consolidating the Continent’s Rise,” in London yesterday.

She said the figure was not new, but had been a source of discussions between the ministry of finance and the petroleum ministry, but that the huge attention it generated necessitated the government to take steps leading to the appointment of

Steel Workers Commend FG For Reviving Ajaokuta Steel Coy

By NAN

The workers in Ajaokuta Steel Company Ltd yesterday, commended the federal government for its efforts at reviving the industry.

Price Water House Coopers to do a forensic audit.

She said, “Initially it was $48billion, then $20billion, but the figure we have always had is $10.8billion. I am minister of finance, if money is missing I want to use it for good things for the country and that was why when we went to the Senate, we demanded for forensic audit, the President supported it and asked for it to be done “We engaged PwC with the auditor general taking the lead.

They initially asked for 16 weeks to complete the work, they have spent 11or12 weeks so far and they will be done in a couple of weeks.”

On Ebola, she said Nigeria needs to be commended for the efforts it The national president of Iron and Steel Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ISSSAN), Mr Otori Salihu, gave the commendation at the annual leadership workshop of the association in Lokoja.

He said the recent delivery of consignment of billets to the company in preparation for resumption of production was a good development for the country and workers in the sector.

He called on all stakeholders

made in ensuring the index case did not take the illness out of the country and also containing it.

“Nigeria did a great service by stopping Sawyer who was Minnesota- bound. Ebola cannot be said to be the real elephant in the room as it has been hyped beyond proportion by the media.

“We all want democracy, but how do you get it? It involves money. If you wasn’t accountability and good governance you must discuss issues relating to campaign funds. People who sponsor campaigns believe they must get something from the government when elections are won. These are the real elephant in the room and we need to deal with it,” Okonjo-Iweala added.

Discussing on a panel on in the steel industry, including workers, to support government’s efforts towards reviving the sector.

Salihu also called for a policy that would stimulate the use of local content in the sector as a means of creating jobs and sustaining steel development in the country.

He, nonetheless, called for effective implementation of good policy on the sector, insisting that the progress of the nation’s steel sector had been

Focus Nigeria, director-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Arunma Oteh, described wholesale and retail trade as the future of Nigerian economy.

Oteh said Nigeria was focusing more on small and medium enterprises (SME) development as a way of creating more jobs and improving the standards of living of their citizens because it recognises that SMEs are vehicles for wealth creation which could in turn improve the economy of the country.

She said, “I think first and foremost, is the recognition globally about the importance of SMEs because they are the ones who create jobs.

dragging due to failure in policy implementation.

He commended the workers of the company for their dedication to duty in spite of the numerous challenges that had confronted the company in the past.

He said the workshop was aimed at preparing the workers ahead of resumption of production soon.

The theme of the workshop was: “Strategic Synergy for the Development of National Metal and Steel Sector in Nigeria.’’

Sada

BUSINESS QUOTE If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn’t have a job if he was any smarter.

John Gotti, gangster (1940-2002)

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

15

NEWS/BUSINESS 16

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

AIB Releases Report On Associated Airline Embraer 120

BY NKEM OSUAGWU, Lagos

The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) yesterday issued an interim statement on investigations into last year’s crash of Associated Airline Embraer -120, aircraft.

The aircraft registered 5N-BJY crashed at the Lagos

Airrport on Thursday October 3, 2013 a few seconds after takeoff.

AIB said though investigations into the crash have reached an advanced stage it was still waiting for the outcome of the engine teardown including the aircraft propeller systems to be able to

reach certain conclusions on the investigations.

“These components were sent to Canada and the United States of America to determine why the propeller went into auto-feather during take-off,” said the commissioner of AIB, Dr Felix Abali, yesterday in Abuja at the marking of one-

year anniversary of the tragic incident:He said, “On the 3rd of October 2013 about 0930hrs 5N-BJY EMB 120 on a domestic charter flight crashed into the Joint Users Hydrant Installation area of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Lagos.

“The aircraft experienced a power loss on the right engine

propeller resulting in autofeathering activation on takeoff from runway 19L of the airport.

“Twenty persons were on board the aircraft,which included seven crew members.

Sixteen persons were fatally injured and four persons survived the accident including two crew members.

NCC, ATCON Set for Nigeria ICT Festival 2014

BY Chima Akwaja, Lagos

The Nigeria ICT Festival 2014 has continued to generate positive response from regulators and operators in the nation’s ICT sector. In that respect, both the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) have indicated interest to participate actively at the event set for Thursday, October 30, 2014 in Lagos. The theme of the conference is: ‘Broadband: Path to Digital Future.’

Accordingly, executive vice-chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Eugene Juwah, is the special guest of honour and will also deliver the keynote address at the event while Engr.

Lanre Ajayi, ATCON president is one of the distinguished guest speakers.

In the same vein, Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu, immediate past

president of ATCON will chair the event which promises to draw a large number of bluechip operators in the Nigerian ICT space.

According to a statement

by Prince Cookey, publisher/ editor-in-chief of Business Journal magazine, the Nigeria ICT Festival 2014 is a platform to further celebrate the achievements of the sector over the years, give regulators, operators and telecom consumers the opportunity to generate strategic plan of action for future growth of the industry and offer operators the opportunity to showcase their latest products and solutions to the market.

Cookey said the theme of the festival: Broadband: “Path to Digital Future,” aptly captures the essence of the broadband Initiative by the federal government and the NCC to ensure sustainable growth of the industry via application of broadband technology.

MTN Empowers Business Entrepreneurs With N10m

BY Chima Akwaja, Lagos

Winners of this year’s MTN Link Forum budding entrepreneurship challenge have been empowered with the sum of N10million.

The presentation took place at the grand finale of its fourcity mentorship and careertransforming platform-MTN Link Forum held in Abuja.

Nwaje Lucky, Akinwole Oludayo, Muhammed Salisu and Ogunlana Olumide emerged the overall winners out of 497 young business professionals that participated in this year’s budding entrepreneurship challenge. Each of the winners received N2.5 million business grants. While ten participants with the best business ideas were also selected for a fully sponsored trip to the 2014 World Entrepreneurship Forum taking place in Lyon, France.

Speaking at the event, the general manager, Consumer Marketing, MTN, Mr Kola Oyeyemi said, “MTN is committed

to initiating ideas that make life better for all its customers. The MTN Link Forum is one of the platforms that provide budding entrepreneurs and business professionals the opportunity to connect to their dreams.

What MTN has done is to create a platform where budding entrepreneurs can interact with accomplished entrepreneurs and role models, so as to garner insights and knowledge on making a success of their businesses.”

In its usual tradition, MTN Link Forum brought notable business icons to teach best business practices and to interact with Abuja budding entrepreneurs.

Speakers at the event include the director of operations of Mara Group &Mara Mentor, an online mentorship community, Mr Hetal Shah, the managing director and chief executive officer of Suntrust Mortgage Bank, Mr Muhammad Jubrin, and the executive director of United Healthcare, Dr Kazeem Mustapha.

Follow these reports on leadership.ng/business

L-R: Deputy managing director, Arik Air, Capt. Ado Sanusi; managing director, Mr Chris Ndulue, and the senior manager, customer loyalty and relations, Mr Kayshelya de Alwis, during the launch of Arik Affinity Wings held at the airline’s corporate head office in Lagos, PHOTO BY BENEDICT UWALAKA

Nigeria’s e-Commerce Market Potential Worth $10bn – Minister

BY Chima Akwaja, Lagos

As Nigeria moves to entrench a cashless economy, minister of communications technology, Dr Omobola Johnson, has said that Nigeria’s electronic commerce market has a potential worth of $10 billion with about 300,000 online orders currently being made on daily basis.

Speaking at the Centre for Values Leadership (CVL) which held in Lagos last week, where key stakeholders were honoured for their contributions to the growth and development of Nigeria’s information and communications technology (ICT) industry, she said the e-commerce market in Nigeria has attracted $200 million foreign investment to date with about 36 per cent of the country’s 170 million people connected online.

The Nigerian e-commerce market has created over 12,000 jobs since 2012, expanding the infrastructure, warehousing, advertising and logistics services

industry. Increased internet use could propel Nigeria private consumption almost 13 times high from $12 billion to $154 billion by 2025 according to the minister.

Quoting McKinsey’s “Lions Go Digital,” report which predicts that the Internet could contribute up to $300 billion to Africa’s GDP by 2025 up from an estimated 18 billion in 2013, Johnson said the ICT industry has significant enabling effect on other sectors of the economy, contributing a combined 2.56 per cent of added value. This is apart from direct contribution of 10.44 per cent to 2013 GDP. Johnson noted that Nigeria’s positioning in the growth story of the global ICT industry was improving and strategic with successes achieved in several sub sectors worth celebrating but key initiatives were still a work in progress. “We are delivering an ICT environment that is ‘enabling’ for consumers and engages more Nigerians at

a high level will only be possible through creative partnerships and collaborations.”

Charles Anudu, managing director, Swift Networks in his presentation said Internet broadband would become a fundamental human right in the future as countries build ubiquitous networks with date traffic becoming more democratic. “In terms of global traffic trends, we are seeing it here in Nigeria too. Telecom operators are trying their best but the growth in demand outstrips supply,” he said.

“We are seeing more video traffic on our networks. There is emerging demand for converged services. Customers are becoming more demanding for quality of service (QoS), availability and convenience,” adding that mobile networks connection speeds more than doubled in 2013. In 2013, fourth generation (4G) connections generated 29 per cent more traffic than non-4G connections.

zonal watch (South-East) 41

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS

Why Ekweremadu, Eze Oppose Ugwuanyi As Chime’s Successor

BY MIKE UBANI, Enugu

Barely 24 hours after Governor Sullivan Chime organised a proPresident Goodluck Jonathan rally at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu, ostensibly on the auspices of Enugu Movement for the Reelection of Jonathan (EMJ), the Enugu State chief executive announced Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, who currently represents Igboeze North/Udenu federal constituency in the House of Representatives, as the sole candidate of the PDP in the state for the 2015 gubernatorial election.

The announcement followed the state PDP stakeholders meeting which held at the instance of Governor Chime Friday night at Government House Enugu.

Ugwuanyi was reportedly described by the stakeholders at the meeting “as the consensus candidate”.

LEADERSHIP gathered that before the Enugu meeting last Friday, stakeholders of the party from Enugu North Senatorial zone and traditional rulers from the area had also during a meeting held at Nsukka, selected Ugwuanyi as the one to fly the PDP gubernatorial flag in the next general elections.

A usually reliable source told LEADERSHIP that many of the people who attended the Nsukka meeting were arm-twisted “by the powers that be”, to select Ugwuanyi as the consensus candidate of the PDP from the zone to fly the party’s gubernatorial flag in 2015.

Governor Chime had earlier announced the zoning of the governorship slot to Enugu North Senatorial zone where Ugwuanyi hails from. He said the decision was taken by the stakeholders of the party in the state. He argued that the decision was based on fairness, equity and justice.

The Enugu North senatorial zone is yet to produce a governor since the commencement of the present democratic dispensation in 1999. Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, who clinched the position in 1999 on the platform of PDP, hails from Enugu East senatorial zone. He ruled the state from 1999 to 2007.

His successor and incumbent Governor Chime hails from Enugu West senatorial zone. Chime is due to leave office in eight months time. He is said to be nursing the ambition to contest the Enugu West senatorial seat in the forthcoming election. Senator Ike Ekweremadu, deputy speaker of the senate, who is also speaker of ECOWAS parliament, is presently representing the zone in the upper legislative chambers.

It was gathered that though

Chime

Ekweremadu is not against the governorship slot going to Enugu North Senatorial zone, he was rankled by the ‘undemocratic’ way the decision was taken. Some of the people close to him say the governor took a unilateral decision to give the coveted trophy to Enugu North whose representative in the Senate is Senator Ayogu Eze. However, Ekweremadu’s greatest concern is the governor’s alleged ambition to go to the Senate to represent Enugu West senatorial zone at his (Ekweremadu’s) expense.

The governor is also reportedly preparing his chief of staff, Mrs. Ifeoma Nwobodo, to replace Senator Gil Emeka Nnaji at the Senate. Nnaji who is the chairman, Senate Committee on Communications, presently represents Enugu East senatorial zone in the Senate.

Ekweremadu was conspicuously absent at the Enugu rally last Thursday. He told LEADERSHIP that he couldn’t attend the rally because the Senate was that day debating important national issues including the request by President Jonathan for the parliament to approve a $1billion loan to buy arms and ammunitions to contain the present insurgency in the country.

He described the organisers of the rally as late comers to the campaign for President Jonathan to declare interest to contest the 2015 presidential election on the platform of the party.

Nevertheless, Governor Chime said during the rally that any PDP stakeholder in the state who failed to attend the rally was against the re-election of President Jonathan.

Ekweremadu was not also

My supporters are particularly worried by the aspect of the story claiming that I have stepped down for the said anointed candidate. I wish to state clearly and unambiguously that I have not, and will not step down for any anointed candidate

present at the PDP stakeholders meeting held last Friday night where Ugwuanyi was announced the sole gubernatorial candidate of the party.

There are over ten politicians from Enugu North jostling to succeed Governor Chime. They include Senator Eze, the speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Eugene Odo, Chief Vita Abba, chairman of the state chapter of the PDP, and Mr. Chinedu Onu, a member of TETFUND board.

Senator Eze was said to have expressed shock and disbelief after Governor Chime announced Ugwuanyi as the consensus gubernatorial candidate of the party on the basis that other contestants stepped down for him.

And shortly after the controversial nomination of Ugwuanyi, Senator Eze issued a statement denouncing the exercise.

He said he was hoodwinked into the meeting, and vowed to forge ahead with his gubernatorial ambition on the platform of PDP. Senator Eze said, “My supporters are particularly worried by the aspect of the story claiming that I have stepped down for the said anointed candidate. I wish to state clearly and unambiguously that I have not, and will not step down for any anointed candidate.

I am still squarely in the race for Enugu Lion Building in the year of our Lord 2015.

“I was invited to a meeting of a gathering of the people of my Senatorial District presided over by the governor at the Governors Lodge in Enugu on Friday September 26, 2015. Prior to our arrival at the Government House that Friday afternoon, the agenda of the meeting was not circulated, neither was the criterion for selecting those attending the meeting made known to me.

“At the meeting, I pointedly stated that though I was already in their midst in a sort of an ambush, I was not bound by their decision to which I believe they were entitled.

It is their inalienable right to choose a consensus candidate in the same manner that to my supporters and well-wishers I am also a consensus candidate.

“I look forward to all the consensus candidates of the various interest groups meeting in the field at the PDP governorship primaries on November 29 to test which of the various consensus blocks is numerically stronger.

“Democracy is about elections and the will of the people. Those elements of democracy will be put to test when we arrive the field for the primaries. I will gladly accept the outcome of the primaries.

News Behind The News

Enugu Guber: PDP Dismisses Plan To Unleash Thugs On Ayogu Eze

BY NNAMDI NBAWIKE, Enugu

The Enugu North senatorial zone of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has dismissed as false, the allegation credited to Senator Ayogu Eze, that some members of the state chapter of the party had concluded plans to harass him with thugs following his insistence to conduct open primaries to choose the party’s candidate for the 2015 governorship election in the state.

In a statement signed by Enugu North zonal chairman, Chief Mike Ejinima, the party said the allegation ascribed to Senator Eze who currently represents Enugu North senatorial district in the upper legislative House was unfounded and mischievous.

It would be recalled that at a meeting of PDP stakeholders from the zone held at Lion Building, the official residence of Governor Sullivan Chime on September 26, 2014, Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, presently representing Udenu/Igboeze North federal constituency in the House of Representatives was adopted as the party’s consensus candidate.

Senator Ayogu reportedly dismissed Ugwuanyi’s adoption as undemocratic, and allegedly went further to accuse the party in the state of planning to hire thugs to scare him away from participating in the governorship primaries scheduled to hold next month.

But Ejinima in his statement issued at the weekend said that by adopting Ugwuanyi as the consensus candidate for the governorship election, the party has not closed its doors against any aspirant opposed to the party’s decision on the matter. According to the statement, “The party as an agent of democratic values would be glad to welcome Senator Eze to the primaries to test his strength if he still insists on contesting against the popular choice of the party”.

While commending the party leaders from Enugu East senatorial district for unanimously endorsing Hon. Ugwuanyi as the consensus governorship candidate, Ejinima reminded Senator Eze of the grave consequences of “all his actions and inactions against the interest of the party in the state”.

He further noted that he was aware of a proposal by youths of the party from the six local government areas that make up Enugu North senatorial district to organise a peaceful rally in support of the emergence of Hon. Ugwuanyi as the consensus governorship candidate of the party.

Such grassroots movement, he insisted was in consonant with the norms and values of any political organisation worldwide, wondering why the senator has chosen to deliberately blackmail the party and the state by raising such frivolous allegation.

He, therefore, advised Senator Eze and his team to be guided by their common belief in party supremacy, and desist from further acts that could undermine the peace that exists in the party both at the zonal and state levels in order not to overheat the polity.

42 PHOTO NEWS

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

SALLAH CELEBRATION: A man and his child shooting at an object at the Wonderland Park in Abuja, yesterday.

Some children waving inside a plastic boat at the Wonderland Park in Abuja, yesterday.

Children with toy guns at the Wonderland Park in Abuja, yesterday.

A fun seeker playing on top of a plastic Bufalo animal at the Wonderland Park in Abuja, yesterday.

OGOH JOSEPH

Children driving a bumper car at the Wonderland Park in Abuja, yesterday. Photos by

PHOTO NEWS 43

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Sallah Celebration: Some children and their parents at the Ikeja City Mall, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, yesterday.

Children having fun with street hoops game at the Ikeja City Mall, Alausa, Lagos, yesterday.

Children playing a game at the Ikeja City Mall, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, yesterday.

A child at the Ikeja City Mall, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, yesterday.

Some children and their parents at the City Mall, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, yesterday. Photos

by BENEDICT UWALAKA

44 news south-west Ijebu State: Awujale Wants FG, NASS To Expedite Action The Awujale and paramount ruler of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona, has urged the federal government and the National Assembly to quicken the process of creation of Ijebu State.

He made the call yesterday at the celebration of this year’s annual Ojude Oba Festival in Ijebu Ode. He, however, thanked members of the National Conference for recommending the creation of Ijebu State, saying the creation of the state would address the Ijebu people’s clamour for equity and justice.

“We thank the National Conference for recommending the creation of Ijebu State. We are now appealing to the federal government and the National Assembly to give effect to this recommendation by doing all that is desirable to actualise our clamour for justice and equity,” he said.

Oba Adetona who said the Ojude Oba festival has become an international event, commended the partnership of the corporate organisations such as Globacom, First City Monument Bank Plc among others, for their support.

Earlier, the state governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, described the festival as a display of the real cultural symbol of unity of the Ijebu people and Ogun State in general.

“Ogun State prides itself as cultural ambassador in Nigeria.

The Ojude Oba festival demonstrates the hard work, industry and hospitality of the Ijebu people,” Amosun said.

According to him, this communal spirit of cooperation and development is contributing to the tourism sub-sector of the state.

The special guest of honour, a former chief of army staff, LtGen. Theophilus Danjuma (rtd) also described the festival as unique, as it paraded the best of the culture of the people.

He congratulated the Awujale for being one of the longest surviving monarchs in the country.

“I saw the joy and excitement on the faces of the people, and the colourful robes and dresses.

“Also, the genuineness of the adulation of the king was wonderful. I don’t know of a kingdom in the country with such number of people pouring adulation on their king,” Danjuma said.

The festival witnessed parade of age grades known as ‘regberegbe’ whose members dressed in various colourful attire and adornment, taking their turns to pay homage to the Awujale.

By Gbenga Adeboye, Abeokuta

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Atiku Seeks Inclusion Of Health, Agric, Education In Concurrent List

By Alo Abiola, Ado-Ekiti

Ex-vice president and presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has canvassed for the inclusion of Health, Agriculture and Education in the concurrent list.

He also asked Nigerians to make the right choice by voting for the APC in the 2015 general election, saying “this is

the first time Nigerians will be having an alternative platform to vote out the Peoples Democratic Party, and this opportunity must not be missed”.

The APC national leader made the call yesterday in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, while commissioning the 300-bed Oba Adejugbe Hospital Complex constructed by Dr Kayode Fayemi’s administration to mark his four years

in office.

Atiku who advocated devolution of powers in the country to give more powers and resources to the states noted that the federal government was taking much responsibilty to the detriment of other federating units.

He lamented that the federal government was taking on responsibilities that are supposed to be undertaken

by the state governments for the overall development of the country.

In his remarks, Governor Fayemi who described the construction of the hospital as a promise kept, said he embarked on massive investment in the health sector to make poverty history in the state and bring about geometric increase in the productivity of the people.

L-R: Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adejugbe, Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Sen Aisha Al-Hassan at the inauguration of Oba Adejugbe General Hospital, Ado-Ekiti, yesterday. PHOTO BY NAN

Ekiti Crisis: Group Raises Alarm Over Death Threats To Members

By GEORGE OKOJIE, Lagos

A non-governmental forum of stakeholders in Ekiti State, E-Eleven, has raised the alarm over death threats to its members through phone calls and messages over the suit it filed in an Ekiti State High Court, challenging the eligibility of the governor-elect, Mr Ayodele Fayose to contest the June 21 election.

The group’s chairman, Mr Femi Ajiran, who made the allegation in a statement he signed and made available to journalists, called on the Nigeria Police and State Security Service to track and bring the masterminds of the threat calls and messages to book.

He explained that some of the mem-

bers of the group had been receiving the threat calls and messages since Justice Olusegun Ogunyemi was attacked and manhandled at the premises of Ekiti State High Court on September 22.

According to him, the threat calls and messages persisted after another attack on a judge of the High Court, Justice John Adeyeye, who was allegedly beaten under the supervision of the governor-elect.

The E-Eleven leader provided details of the phone contacts, which he said, had been calling some members of E-Eleven like Sen. Babafemi Ojudu, Mr Femi Ajayi, Mr Niyi Ajakaiye and Mr Femi Ajiniran among others.

Ajiniran urged the Nigeria Police and

State Security Service to investigate those behind the threat calls and messages, noting that the callers had issued death threats on the members of E-Eleven, threatened to destroy their properties and attack their family members if they do not withdraw the suit against Fayose.

He explained the involvement of EEleven in the management of Fountain Hotels, which he said, was an abandoned or incomplete project as at 2008 when Governor Segun Oni was in office.

He said the hotel “was not habitable.

At the instance of the Oni administration, a company, Consolidated Alliance Limited (CAL) bid for and won the right to manage the facility in April 2008.

short news Judges, Lawyers Pay Tribute To Ex-Oyo CJ Judges and lawyers gathered yesterday to bid farewell to the late former chief judge of Oyo State, Moshood Adio, who died last week in Ibadan at the age of 78.

The colourful event, which climaxed at Le Chateau, Old Bodija, where guests were entertained, commenced at the New Bodija residence of the late chief judge, where Islamic clerics led by the chief imam of Ibadan land, Sheikh Suarau Haroun held the Eighth Day Fidau prayers for the repose of his soul.

Among the members of the Bench who paid tribute to the late Adio were Mojeed Owoade of the Court of Appeal, Badejoko Adeniji, former chief judge of Oyo State, Olagoke Ige, Solomon Akinteye, Mojeed Ishola, Bayo Ganiyu, Eni Esan, A. A. Aderemi and O. Boade, while Lateef Fagbemi, Niyi Akintola, Tunde Aiku, Bolaji Ayorinde, all SANs represented the Bar.

By Adebayo Waheed, Ibadan

Osun Assists Poultry Farmers To Make N260m Profit

By Joshua Dada, Osogbo

Osun State government in collaboration with Tuns Farms Nigeria Limited has assisted poultry farmers in the state to make a profit of N260million from the Osun Broiler Outgrower Production Scheme.

The owner of Tuns Farms, Alhaji Kahmis Olatunde Badmus, who disclosed this while speaking with journalists in Osogbo, said the scheme was set up by Governor

Rauf Aregbesola’s administration in collaboration with Tuns Farms and the Nigeria Poultry Association, adding that no agricultural project in the country has ever recorded such feat.

According to him, the state government invested N300million in the project to provide feeds for Day Old Chicks (DOC) supplied by Tuns Farms to the poultry farmers who participated in the scheme, while the poultry farmers raised the birds

in their facilities after which Tuns Farms bought the broilers from the poultry farmers.

Badmus said the benefiting farmers have so far repaid over N170million to the state government out of the N300million the state government invested in the project.

“No agric project in the country can match this Osun Broiler Outgrower Production Scheme. The farmers that partook have made

profit of over N260million. Individual farmers in the scheme made profits in the range of N15million.

The state government has not lost anything.

“The government even gained because the farmers are paying N1million every month which is going into the state’s Internally Generated Revenue”, he said.

Badmus added that the scheme has also boosted the production of broiler meat in Osun State.

news Lagos 45

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Total Moon Eclipse May Occur Tomorrow There are indications that sky watchers and observers of the lunar system will notice an extremely rare cosmic sight tomorrow, when a total lunar eclipse is expected to occur in different parts of the world.

Sky gazers are saying the total eclipse of the moon will result in a simultaneous rising of the sun in what scientists have called “selenelion,” a phenomenon that celestial geometry says cannot happen.

They said that during the lunar eclipse, the sun and moon will be exactly 180 degrees apart in the sky, though they hinted that in a perfect alignment like this (called a “syzygy”), such an observation would seem impossible.

The images of both the sun and moon are expected to be lifted above the horizon by atmospheric refraction.

According to the scientists, this will allow people on Earth to see the sun for several extra minutes before it actually rises and the moon for several extra minutes after it has actually set.

Watchers in different locations will have a chance to observe this unusual sight first hand, with the possibility of simultaneously seeing the sun rising in the east while the eclipsed full moon is setting in the west.

By George Okojie, Lagos with agency report

Bakare Raises Alarm Over Facebook Fraud The founder of the Latter Rain Assembly and convener of Save Nigeria Group, Pastor Tunde Bakare has raised the alarm over the activities of internet fraudsters who have opened Facebook accounts in his name to dupe unsuspecting members of the public.

The clergyman who alerted the general public during a church service in Lagos said his attention was drawn to the fact that the scammers were using the platform to solicit financial assistance from members of the public.

According to Bakare, one of his friends, Pastor Jonathan David had noticed the fake Facebook accounts and asked people to ignore it.

Bakare who urged members of the public not to fall into the traps of the fraudsters emphasised that he does not have a Facebook account.

The firebrand preacher added jokingly that the only book he faces is the Bible, urging people to discard any message sent through such channels.

Bakare said he could be reached through the church’s official website, warning the scammers to desist from the act before nemesis catches up with them in their fraudulent trade.

The man of God lamented that the country is being turned to a lawless state, charging those Nigerians still into crime to desist from it.

By George Okojie, Lagos

Some officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) on ember months safety campaign in Lagos, yesterday. PHOTO

2015: Jonathan Shores Up S’West Support, Coordinates PDP, LP Merger

By Olaolu Oladipo, Lagos

In his bid to secure his reelection, President Goodluck Jonathan has commenced series of initiatives that would guarantee a good showing for his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South West region at the forthcoming general election.

Sources who spoke to LEADERSHIP separately in Lagos yesterday stated that while the president has commenced consultative meetings with members of the PDP in the zone, he has also been stepping up efforts to ensure that the entire structure of the Labour Party (LP) in the region dissolves finally into the PDP. The sources stated that the decision to quicken the defection of LP members was to ensure that those who formally defect take part in the forthcoming congresses where the candidates of the PDP are expected to emerge.

It was gathered that one

of the major schemes is the setting up of a machinery to absorb members of the LP in the South West, being one of the decisions reached at the formal declaration of Ondo State governor, Olusegun Mimiko for the PDP in Abuja recently.

The governor had formally dumped the LP, upon which he secured the governorship of the state, for the PDP recently in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

According to the source who is close to the Ondo State governor, efforts are being made to woo other chieftains of the LP, particularly governorship candidates of the party in Osun and Ekiti states as well as chieftains such as former Ogun State governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel.

Though Fatai Akinbade, the LP candidate in the August 9 governorship election in Osun has said he has no desire to join the PDP, his counterpart in Ekiti, Opeyemi Bamidele is said to be torn between those lobbying him from the All

Progressives Congress (APC) and chieftains of the PDP. Sources told LEADERSHIP that Mimiko has been mandated to ensure that prominent members of the LP in the zone defect to the PDP “soonest” to be able to take part in the series of congresses that would produce flag bearers for the PDP. “When we met Vice President (Namadi) Sambo where the governor (Mimiko) decamped to the PDP, a machinery was put in place to ensure that a grand ceremony that will formally welcome the governor back to the PDP takes place soonest”.

“When the defection took place during the last national security council meeting in Abuja, the governor was told to spearhead the process of bringing on board, prominent members of the LP in the South West back to the PDP. They have promised to storm Akure soonest to welcome prominent members back to where they belong,” the source said.

A party executive member

told our correspondent that “the date for the grand reception would soon be announced but what I can tell you now is that pressure is being mounted so that those who would be returning would take part in the forthcoming congresses.”

“You know the election is few months away and the president is not taking chances at all, so it won’t be out of place to woo those considered relevant to his bid, while at the same time, winning others very important to make the bid work to his side.”

Party sources also told our correspondent that the president is also contemplating a meeting with a former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo but at the time of filing this report, the meeting was yet to take place.

A party chieftain stated that the envisaged visit is sequel to an earlier one undertaken by a delegation of the party led by the Senate president, David Mark.

UNFPA Donates Materials To Ebola Emergency Committee

By NAN

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has donated materials for the prevention of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) to the Lagos State Ebola Emergency Operation Committee.

In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday, Mr Oluseyi Soremekun, the national information officer at the UN Information

Centre, said the materials would boost the efforts at eliminating the disease.

The statement said that the agency also commended both the federal and Lagos State governments for containing EVD. It said the materials include 10,000 copies of books on standard information for EVD contact self-care and 10,000 copies of books on screened suspected EVD

patients in healthcare facilities.

Others are 500 copies of filovirus hemorrhagic fever guidelines and 500 copies of standard operating procedures for controlling Ebola and Marburg virus epidemics.

The statement quoted UNFPA country representative, Ms Rati Ndhlovu, as saying that the materials would strengthen public sensitisation to the mode of spread

of the disease as part of measures to prevent a relapse.

Ndhlovu commended the Lagos State government for its quick response to curtail further spread of EVD. She also commended the state government for the speed with which it handled the index case and all the emergency measures put in place to prevent further spread of the disease.

46 news south-South south-East Feuding Communities In Delta Embrace Peace Peace is now in sight in Delta communities as the running battle between authorities of the Gbaramatu, Egbema and Ogulagha Coastal Community Front over financial entitlements due to them from Chevron Nigeria Ltd. is now being resolved, following an emergency meeting held in Warri over the weekend.

In a strongly worded resolution of the well attended meeting addressed to the managing director of Chevron, entitled “Suspension of 21 Days Ultimatum to Chevron Nigeria Ltd: Call for Settlement of GEOCCF Crisis”, the communities agreed to terminate the ultimatum and come together to resolve the issues in contention.

By Kola Eke-Ogiugo, Asaba

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

2015: I Can’t Be Intimidated Out Of Rivers Guber Race – Wike

By Anayo Onukwugha, Port Harcourt

Minister of state for education and governorship aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State, Chief Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike, has vowed never to be intimidated out of the race.

The minister’s position may not be unconnected with recent reports that he may be prevailed upon by the Presidency to drop his gubernatorial ambition, considering the fact that he hails from the same Ikwerre ethnic nationali-

ty with the incumbent governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.

Wike, who spoke in Port Harcourt yesterday when a delegation from Apara Kingdom of the state visited him at his residence, assured the people of the state that the leadership of PDP would have the luxury of choosing the candidate they want to contest next year’s governorship election.

He also assured the people that the ruling party is united and stronger than ever before, adding that members of the party are working as a team to take over Rivers State come 2015 general elec-

tions.

The minister accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) government in the state of playing politics with the welfare of the people, pointing out that the Amaechi administration is selective in the distribution of infrastructural development in the state.

Wike said, “The governor dips hand into his pocket and gives out money for a project without due process. We must vote the APC government out in 2015. The only way we can reply these people for all the abuses they have been abusing the president and his wife is for

us to vote them out.

“I have said it before and I want to say it again that nobody can intimidate me. PDP leaders know who they will choose to contest.

And I know who they will choose.

What you need to do is to vote for President Jonathan because when he wins, we will win Rivers State.”

Speaking earlier, the chairman, Apara Council of Chiefs, Chief Chike Worlu, called on the minister to resign from the federal cabinet and declare for the governorship election, assuring that the entire people of Apara Kingdom were behind him.

short news C/River Youths Endorse Ugbe For Governor

Delta Frowns At Extortion Of Electricity Consumers The Delta State government has kicked against the N750 monthly fixed charge collected by the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) from its consumers in the state.

Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, while reacting to the monthly collection, noted that the action of the BEDC may amount to extortion and exploitation of electricity consumers, adding that fixed charges and estimated tariffs are not only insensitive but also crude.

The governor urged the management of the BEDC to look inward and regulate the electricity tariff charges so as to make them affordable for the consumers.

By Kola Eke-Ogiugo, Benin Asaba

Edo Philanthropist Doles Out Empowerment Items To Community It was a happy moment for men of the Nigeria Police Force and youths in Uromi, the administrative headquarters of Esan North East local government, as a philanthropist yesterday donated four KVA generating sets and two Peugeot 406 cars to the police and youths.

The items were donated by Engineer Lawrence Osuman at a colourful ceremony, which attracted dignitaries who poured encomiums on the donor.

Speaking at the ceremony, the executive director on youth affairs to the state governor, Comrade Emmanuel Yakubu lauded Osuman for his philanthropic gesture, which will go a long way in meeting the needs of the community.

By Patrick Ochoga, Benin City

L-R: Deputy speaker, House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha, Anambra State governor, Willie Obiano and the first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, during the Empowerment of Widows Programme, organised by South East Multitude Movement 4J, at Alex Ekwueme Square, Awka. Photo By Nan

PDP To Amaechi: Stop Insulting Jonathan

By Anayo Onukwugha, Port Harcourt

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State has warned Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi to stop insulting President Goodluck Jonathan or be ready to face the consequences of his actions.

The party, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt yesterday, described recent comments by Amaechi against the Jonathan-led federal government as childish and unwarranted, adding that the governor’s outburst is shameful.

The statement, which was signed

by Jerry Needam, media aide to the state PDP chairman, reads, “Rivers State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, says unwarranted name-calling, attacks and rabble-rousing comments of Governor Rotimi Amaechi against President Goodluck Jonathan at a recent function is shameful and childish.”

The party stated that such outburst shows that Governor Amaechi has demeaned the exalted office of the Governor and exposed himself as one with a loose tongue, saying, “The PDP regrets that Amaechi has been instigating the people of Kalabari

Kingdom to take up arms against the federal government and promote hatred against the person of President Goodluck Jonathan who is an Ijaw son over the Soku oil wells and wonders if he believes peaceful resolution of conflicts.

“Besides the fact that Governor Amaechi’s comments and actions are contraventions of the Electoral Act on campaigns ahead of the 2015 general elections, his comments are also very provocative, confrontational and subversive against the person and office of the President and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.”

2015: Obuh Vows To Sustain Delta Economy Beyond Oil

By George Okojie, Lagos

As the 2015 general elections draw near, a governorship aspirant in Delta State under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Anthony Chuks Obuh, has said that sustaining the state beyond oil will be his priority when voted into office.

Speaking at an interactive ses-

sion with journalists yesterday in Lagos, the retired permanent secretary in the Delta Civil Service said he will harness the huge potential and capabilities in human and material resources available in the state to revamp its economy.

He said, “Our policy is to ensure that we push the economy of Delta beyond oil.

“We will have to begin to harness opportunities in different sectors and segments for the benefit of the people of Delta State. We have abundant natural resources and agriculture is one area we consider vital which we can develop to galvanise our economy.”

Obuh, who holds a Master’s Degree in Industrial and Labour

Youths under the aegis of ‘Cross River Youths in Politics’ have resolved to queue behind Mr Patrick Ugbe, the erstwhile commissioner for youths and sports development, as he aspires to contest the 2015 governorship election.

The youths who made the declaration during a solidarity visit to the aspirant in Calabar said their support was based on the leadership qualities of the aspirant and his love for the youths.

Describing Ugbe as humble, responsible and accommodating, the president of the group, Mr Akibi Inyang said Cross River needs a man like Ugbe who is highly intelligent, patient, sincere and focused.

By Olaolu Oladipo, Lagos

Relations from the University of Ibadan added, “If we leave agriculture, we are also going to tackle education. Unemployment is a problem that is plaguing the whole world, not just Nigeria, not to talk of Delta State. But for us in Delta, we will see it as a major challenge which will be tackled through training of graduates for skills acquisition.”

news NATIONAL 47

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Court Martial: HURIWA Tackles Amnesty International, Rights Watch Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has faulted two international human rights groups, the Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch on their stance against the General Court Marshal in Nigeria by the Nigerian Military authority, saying they should stop crying more than the bereaved.

Specifically, the pro-democracy non-governmental organisation based in Nigeria challenged its counterparts in the United Kingdom and the United States to show Nigerians why acts of indiscipline by military operatives should be tolerated.

In a statement jointly signed by its national coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and national media affairs director, Miss. Zainab Yusuf, respectively, HURIWA wondered why Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are crying wolf when even their home nations have most often sanctioned erring military operatives for the same kind of offences in the recent times, especially while carrying out military assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Accordingly, the group threw its weight behind the just concluded court marshal and the recently inaugurated second court marshal by the Nigerian Military authority which tried and convicted some indicted military operatives for acts of indiscipline ranging from mutiny, cowardice and attempted murder of the erstwhile General Commanding Officer of the Nigerian Army in Maiduguri, Borno State.

By George Agba, Abuja

Ilorin Water Project To Cost N7.2bn – Aide The senior special assistant to the governor of Kwara State on Investment, Promotion and Strategy, Mr Yomi Ogunsola, said yesterday that the Ilorin metropolis water reticulation project will cost N7.2 billion.

He said this in Ilorin in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), explaining that the state government had earlier spent more than N5.2billion on the project.

He also said that the project was at 98 per cent completion stage while the water pipes would be connected to the water mains soon.

Ogunsola assured the residents of the state that the state government was committed to providing basic amenities in all parts of the state.

In addition to this, he said the state government had also provided boreholes to many communities across the state.

In a separate interview, Chief Rex Olawoye, the Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, said that most of the residents in the metropolis would have access to potable water when the project was completed.

By NAN

Bakassi Does Not Belong To Nigeria – Surveyor-General by nan,

The Surveyor-General of the Federation, Prof. Peter Nwilo has said that Bakassi Peninsula, does not belong to Nigeria but to Cameroon.

Nwilo made the clarification when he featured as a guest on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja yesterday, saying that based on available facts, the disputed territory

actually belonged to Cameroon.

Nigeria lost the territory to Cameroon based on a judgment of International Court of Justice in The Hague in October 2002.

Nigeria ceded Bakassi to Cameroon on Aug. 14, 2008 following the Greentree Agreement and thus ended the dispute over the 1,000sq/ km territory.

Some 90 per cent of citizens in the Peninsula are of the Efik ethnic nationality in Bakassi lo-

cal government area of Cross River State. ``Bakassi was more or less part of what they called Southern Cameroon. ``I know that the available facts did not weigh in favour of Nigeria...the facts they (Cameroon) had at their disposal did not favour Nigeria and that was why we lost it (Bakassi). ``Even though at times we think it is in Nigeria but the evi-

dences didn’t seem to favour us,” he said.

Nwilo said Nigeria had 10 years to bring up new facts to support its claim and for the judgment to be reviewed but it did not have any new information. ``I know just a few months before that, some people brought up some documents but the country felt it was not something new.

L-R: Minister of works, Mr. Mike Onolememen and Bauchi State governor, Malam Isa Yuguda (right) with minister of state for works, Prince Adedayo Adeyeye (middle) during a visit by Governor Yuguda to FMW headquarters in Abuja.

Again, Bayelsa Youths Threaten To Occupy Chevron Facility Over Compensation

BY OSA Okhomina, Yenagoa

Aggrieved youths of Koluama community in Southern Ijaw local government area of Bayelsa State has again threatened to invade the Chevron’s North Apoi oil platform and occupy it over their dissatisfaction on the compensation for the 2012 rig explosion in Chevron’s field.

Hundreds of youths from Koluama community had on September 15 boarded the North

Apoi oil platform operated by Chevron over non-payment of compensation for the rig blowout and vacated the facility after officials of the oil firm opted for dialogue.

The secretary of the Koluama 2 Youths Association, Mr. Leghemo Ebrasin, said the aggrieved youths of the affected communities were dissatisfied by the stance of Chevron on the incident.

He said that Chevron remained

insensitive to the plight of the communities whose ancestral land is threatened by ocean surge in June 2014 following the 2012 incident.

He regretted that the dialogue promised by Chevron has not yielded any fruit adding that no fewer than 500 youths will resume peaceful protest if the company fails to pay compensation by Oct 15, 2014.

“Chevron must pay compensation for the KS Endeavour gas

disaster before 15th day of October 2014.Otherwise we shall organise another massive protest at all Chevron fields in our environment including Agbami oilfield producing about 250,000 barrels per day of crude equivalent.

“Payment of all community workers at the field when the incident occurred, establish an employment Memorandum of Understanding with Koluama communities.Building of delayed gas pant in Koluama.”

Rivers Guber Race: PDP Delegates Prefer Lulu-Briggs – Group

BY ANAYO ONUKWUGHA, Port Harcourt

A political pressure group, the Niger Delta Renaissance Organisation (NDRO) has declared that delegates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State, for the forthcoming November 29, 2014, governorship primaries of the party, would vote for

Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs as the flag-bearer of the party in the 2015 governorship election.

The group stated that from its findings, most members of the PDP in the state prefer LuluBriggs, who is one of the frontline governorship aspirants of the party, to fly the PDP flag during the governorship election.

This was contained in a state-

ment issued yesterday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital and signed by Comrade Nwokoma Messiah, and Eddie Tekenah, national coordinator and national publicity secretary, respectively.

The statement said, “It will be obvious to all and sundry that Dumo Lulu Briggs is the man to beat as far as the party nomination is concerned”. The group

maintained that “of all the candidates that are aspiring for the position, Chief Lulu Briggs remains the most visionary as well as the most committed to the party “With Chief Dumo Lulu Briggs, the PDP in Rivers State will be more united heading to the general elections because of his apparent acceptability to the majority of party faithful in the state.”

48 OPINION

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Jonathan: A Prognosis And Endorsement

By Hamisu Abubakar

Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih, has been called a political tacticianin-chief. He has been called the ‘Oracle of Uromi’. He also has been called Nigeria’s political Nostradamus. What is self-evident is that, in the firmament of the country’s politics for more than three decades now, Anenih is a man of exceptional importance and reputation. More to the point of this article, the recent adoption of President Goodluck Jonathan as the PDP candidate for the February 14, 2015 presidential election by the party’s National Executive Committee proves once again that Anenih possesses unmatched capacity for political prognosis and strategy.

Anenih it was who, in early 2013, first suggested that the party should grant Jonathan automatic ticket to seek re-election in 2015.

At a PDP family dinner held in Abuja on the night of Thursday, May 30, 2013, he reiterated the idea and the suggestion garnered national attention. During the event, the BoT chairman explained how experience had shown that squabbling for tickets at primaries invariably led to internal crises in the party before the main elections.

Consequently, he advocated the automatic ticket option in order to avoid unnecessary and prolonged crises within the party.

At the time, a number of party members supported Anenih’s proposal. However, there were also a few who did not agree with the BoT chairman’s idea. Fastforward two years and four months to September 2015 and Anenih’s suggestion took on a life of its own. First, PDP members of the House of Representatives endorsed

Anenih

Jonathan to fly the party’s flag in 2015. Second, the PDP governors followed suit. The party’s BoT also toed the same line and then the National Executive Committee crowned it all, thereby indicating that the entire party had seen and accepted the wisdom in Anenih’s proposal.

To further buttress his unrivalled grasp of the intricacies of the nation’s politics, while others were dilly-dallying and unable to take a stand on whether Jonathan will run for re-election in 2015, Anenih was also the first to take a categorical stand. Speaking at a gathering of party members during a tour of the South-South zone by the PDP chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, Anenih said, “I want the national chairman to go home with a word from the father that come 2015, Jonathan will run for presidency for the second term.”

Clearly, Anenih’s confidence in Jonathan’s intention to run goes beyond what may be regarded as a political filial relationship, being that he referred to himself as Jonathan’s political father. It is anchored in the reality that, as

As the sitting BoT chairman and a founding member of the PDP, he is very conversant with the inner workings, challenges, and the many successes of the party

the sitting BoT chairman and a founding member of the PDP, he is very conversant with the inner workings, challenges, and the many successes of the party.

It is worth recalling here that, to mark the 2015 Democracy Day, Anenih issued a statement in which he not only laid out some of Jonathan’s achievements; he also listed the major accomplishments of the PDP since the country’s return to democratic rule in 1999.

In that statement, Anenih was quoted as saying: “Let me express how grateful we, in the Peoples Democratic Party, are to our fellow compatriots that they have entrusted our great party with steering the ship of state since our nation’s return to democracy in 1999. It has been a great privilege and a momentous undertaking. And though—as with all human endeavours— we have had differences with our fellow citizens on the other side of the political divide, our on-going democratic journey is proof that the PDP continues to faithfully discharge its foremost duty to our country, which is sustaining a stable, functional State.”

In view of the fact that as chairman of PDP’s BoT, Anenih has firsthand knowledge of these achievements and many others; he can say with full conviction that Jonathan will seek re-election in 2015. And just as it has been proved that he had incomparable political foresight when way back in 2013 he began canvassing for Jonathan to be granted automatic ticket in 2015, it is safe to say that in the coming months, his certainty in Jonathan’s re-election bid and ultimate success will be proved right.

–Abubakar sent in this piece from Abuja.

In Support Of The Nigerian Army

By Simon Abah

The Army has come under so much attack in recent times – despite been fully engaged in the battle against the insurgency devastating the country. And, it is common, to hear some decriers hail them as a ragtag and inefficient Army because, they say their efforts are abysmal so far to get rid of the insurgents–in spite of deaths of soldiers in battle now and again and even when international military analysts say that Nigeria’s military has been gravely underfunded overtime.

But is the Army incompetent and bad?

Instead of endangerment to the Nigerian state, the armed

forces is the last unit that is now holding the unity of this country together at the moment for it is starkly clear that the political unit has turned the country upside down and, one hopes that this political gaucheness does not move stealthily into the Army, for if it does the country will go down to a deep hole.

Even though the ‘terrorists army’ is reportedly seizing control of vast regions of the north east and now threatens the national entity, the political class do not come together throughout the day to discuss how to end the disorder. The northern states elected chief-executives, spiritual and prominent personages

claim not to believe in the ideology of the militants but none have publicly clarified their support for the Army beyond magniloquence and condemnation particularly when the Army decides without the much needed support from office-bearers to use a broader military action.

Most of today’s elected chief executives in other regions of the country, on their part, also stay nonaligned and see the war as one disturbing the ‘other side’ and they remain apathetic to help the Army. Ethnic politics which is pervasive and quickly becoming a way of life for today’s politicians if unchecked may begin to take shape in the Army, giving rise

to a declaration of regionalism as well as ethnicity within that unit instead of es pirit de corp.

The chief of the army and other service chiefs must ensure that this does not happen in the armed forces, or else Nigeria may probably change beyond repair for however hard we try to hide it, Nigerians work with stereotypes that promote rivalries between regions, North vs. South, Christians vs. Muslims and the one thing we can all agree on, for the most part, is we are not united – and this division must not tread softly into the Army.

–Abah is a public affairs analyst.

Every Tuesday Ahmad B.

07081888802 (SMS only) email: babbaahmed@yahoo.com

Gov Shema’s Convoy And Matters Arising

A

nybody flying Nigerian roads couldn’t help but appreciate the deathly condition of these roads and the hellish effort needed to navigate them. Forget the insults splashed on billboards by TAN and other subsidiary groups trying to sell an phantom idea of infrastructural development that exist only in their shallow imagination. What these billboards don’t tell you is the cost of these roads, as well why few people among the elite treat these roads like personal possessions.

Just the other day on my way to Kano from Kaduna I met a heavy gridlock within the Jaji Zaria axis. At first I thought it was the usual armed robbery operation or road accidents commuters are so used to on these roads, but it was neither. It was a more pathetic situation. It was the convoy of the governor of Katsina State, a self-acclaimed “lawyer of international repute” who waste no opportunity to flaunt his “learned” credentials to the public.

Genuine or fake, the veracity of his claim for “international reputation” is not the issue here. My concern is more to the impunity and lawlessness of this supposed chief law officer of state; supposed a trained lawyer as well.

This case was particularly irritating considering it was not the usual deadly fast speed, siren blaring incidences on our roads. In this case, one of the cars in the convoy of “His Excellency” broke down and he considered it lawful to block the road for other users until such a time when his problem was solved. A dying patient in an ambulance going to ABUTH from Kaduna should simply go to hell for all the sense of logical reasoning exhibited by this governor who, faced with tenure exhaustion is probably trying to wield as much power as he could in his remaining days in office.

It was sickening watching helpless Nigerians on their legitimate businesses trapped on a trunk “A” road for no other reason other than to massage the ego of “soon to revert to ordinary” leader who could hardly prove the value he added to a system he gate-crashed into by unverifiable means.

One may ask, are we doomed as a nation?

Certainly with leaders like this it’s not debatable that we are, and I doubt if we will not be better up on our own. If I, as a member of the House of Representatives, could be so harassed into missing an important meeting simply because somebody lacks the simple ability to respect our laws, it is better imagined what other less privileged Nigerians are going through in their effort to survive the harsh life unnecessarily imposed on them by few Nigerians living fat on public treasuries through mandates mostly acquired dubiously.

It is worthy of note that our laws are unambiguously clear about public conduct and how to go about. The problem lies with the seemingly genetic deficit in our moral structure which allows our personal whims to override public interest, ignore our responsibility to it while trashing the respectability of the public. This case was particularly unique for the simple fact that, if a “lawyer of international repute” could behave so outside the provisions of the law, what should we expect from a zoologist. I suppose this should give you a clearer picture of why Nigeria is what it is.

49

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

world

news ➌

➊ ➋

➐ ➏

➍➎

➎ Iran Releases Arrested Journalist On Bail

Tehran has released on bail an Iranian journalist who was arrested more than two months ago, while her husband, a fellow reporter who was arrested at the same, remains in jail.

Yeganeh Salehi, a correspondent for the UAE’s English-language newspaper the National, and Jason Rezaian, the Iran correspondent for the Washington Times newspaper, were arrested on July 22.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Monday that he would temporarily step down as president while attending a hearing at the International Criminal Court this week.

In a televised address before parliament, Kenyatta said he would invoke a never-beforeused article of the constitution that will see Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto temporarily fulfil the top role.

Syrian Kurds have pushed back fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from an area of high ground known as the Mishtenur hill, overlooking the Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, on the

border with Turkey.

ISIL had attempted to storm the town from both east and west of the strategic hill, but Kurdish fighters repulsed the attack on Sunday, said the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

➋Dilma Forces Take AlRousseff To Face Shabab-held Town Run-off In Brazil Somali troops backed by African Election Union (AU) forces have retaken ➊ African Union

the al-Shabab stronghold of Barawe, key to the financing of the armed group.

Reports from Somalia (AMISOM) in Barawe, say, “Special forces are securing the city. They are having people open their doors, looking for al-Shabab elements.”

Brazil’s presidential race will go to a second round after incumbent Dilma Rousseff fell short of an outright victory in Sunday’s election.

She received 42% of the vote and will face centre-right rival Aecio Neves, who won 34%, on 26 October.

➏ Kenyatta To

Step Down During ICC Hearing

The Phoenix, a ship equipped with specialised sonar technology in the Indian ocean as the search for flight MH370 resumes.

➌ HK Protesters Defy Deadline

➍ US Court Paves Way For Gay Marriage

Demonstrators in Hong Kong are still on the streets despite a deadline for them to leave protest sites, although the crowds have noticeably dwindled, allowing civil servants to return to work at government offices.

Workers streamed along a footbridge and into the Central Government Offices complex in the harborside Tamar district.

The US Supreme Court has turned away appeals from five states seeking to prohibit same-sex marriages, paving the way for an immediate expansion of gay and lesbian unions.

The court rejected appeals to ban same-sex marriage in Virginia, Oklahoma, Utah, Wisconsin and Indiana, meaning rulings allowing gay marriage remain in place.

➐ Syrians Kurds

Push Back ISIL From Kobane Hill

50 Bussiness/WORLD NEWS

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Hewlett-Packard To Split Into 2 Busineses

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has announced it is to split itself into two companies, one focused on its personal computer and printing business, and another on technology services, such as data storage, servers and software, as it aims to drive stronger profitability.

The California-based company

said that the personal computer and printer business will use the name HP Inc, and the services business will take the name Hewlett-Packard Enterprise.

HP said in May that it was cutting an additional 11,000 to 16,000 jobs on top of 34,000 reductions planned under a

programme begun in 2012.

The shift has curbed demand for HP’s desktop and laptop computers, as well as its printers.

The Wall Street Journal newspaper said that under the planned split, current HP chief executive Meg Whitman will lead the Enterprise business.

Dion Weisler, an executive in the PC and printer operation, is to be chief executive of HP Inc, the report said.

Founded by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in a Palo Alto, California garage in 1939, HP was one of the companies that helped shape Silicon Valley and the personal computer revolution.

Last week, US online retail giant eBay unveiled plans to spin off PayPal in a move designed to help the unit compete better in the fastmoving online payments segment.

—Al Jazeera

Profit Taking Drags Wall Street Lower, GTAT Crashes

US stocks were falling yesterday with a slide in Micron shares offsetting gains in Hewlett-Packard and traders cashing in on last Friday’s sharp move higher.

Micron was falling 5.6 percent to $32.04 as the largest percentage decliner on the S&P 500 tech sector after Samsung unveiled plans to spend $14.7 billion on a new chip facility.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N) was posting the sector’s largest gains, up 5.2 percent to $37.02 after it said it would split into two listed companies and eliminate another 5,000 jobs.

“Friday’s move was pretty big, and despite the good Hewlett Packard news and other (merger) activity there’s nervous-

ness in general,” said Rick Meckler, president of LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.

“Before earnings there’s a lot of short-term trading going on and we have increased volatility,” he said.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was falling 65.88 points, or 0.39 percent, to 16,943.81, the S&P 500 .SPX was losing 8.33 points, or 0.42 percent, to 1,959.57 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was dropping 27.29 points, or 0.61 percent, to 4,448.33.

The S&P 500 posted its largest daily advance in nearly two months on Friday but finished the week in the red.

The largest percentage gainer on the New York Stock Exchange was CareFusion (CFN.N), rising 22.94 percent after medical equipment supplier Becton Dickinson (BDX.N) agreed to buy it for $12.2 billion in cash and stock.

On the Nasdaq, the largest gainer was also related to an acquisition, with Durata Therapeutics (DRTX.O) rising 72.2 percent.

GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT.O), down 87.3 percent to $1.40, was the most active stock on the Nasdaq after Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) partner in a sapphire glass plant in Arizona said it had filed for voluntary bankruptcy protection.

— Reuters

Walt Disney Rescues Euro Disney With $1.3bn Funding Deal Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) has come to the rescue of its loss-making subsidiary Euro Disney (EDLP.PA) with a 1 billion-euro ($1.3 billion) funding deal announced on Monday, which could give the U.S. group total control over Europe’s biggest tourist attraction.

The deal includes a rights issue and debt restructuring which will inject 420 million euro in cash into the Euro Disney group and eliminate 600 million euros of its debt owed to Walt Disney via an equity swap.

Euro Disney is currently 40 percent owned by Walt Disney and 10 percent by the Saudi prince AlWaleed bin Talal with the rights issue to raise 351 million euros open to all shareholders but backed

by Walt Disney, which will be required to make a tender offer for the whole company.

Twenty miles east of Paris, the resort has struggled amid the economic downturn in Europe, with attendances down by 700,000 to 800,000 visitors at just over 14 million visitors in the last year. At the same time its total debt of 1.75 billion euros which is owed to Walt Disney has hampered its ability to invest in upgrades to the park.

The company said it estimates that revenue

for the year just ended on Sept. 30 fell by up to 3 percent to 1.27 billion euros while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) dipped to 110-120 million euros from 144 million and net losses rose to between 110120 million euros from 78 million.

“This proposal to recapitalize the Euro Disney Group is essential to improve our financial health and enable us to continue making investments in the resort that enhance the guest experience,” company president Tom Wolber said in a statement.

Under the plan, shareholders are to be offered nine new shares for every one held for 1 euro a share, raising 351 million euros. The company said the rights offer price represented a 20 percent discount to Friday’s closing price, adjusted for the issuance of the new shares.

In addition, shareholders will have the option to buy some of the shares issued in the debt conversion at 1.25 euros a share to avoid diluting their stakes.

The company’s debt will fall to 998 million euros, taking the company’s balance sheet from a negative equity position of around 200 million euros at the end of September to positive equity of 800 million.

— Reuters

Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman for NBC News.

EBOLA Will Be Stopped At Its Source, Says Obama

by ABIODUN OLUWAROTIMI, New York

Following criticism from his opponents over the recent cases of Ebola in the United States, President Barrack Obama, yesterday said that his administration is being proactive to stop Ebola at its source.

Speaking through his Senior Adviser, Mr. Dan Pfeiffer, in a pregramme tagged ‘Meet The Press’”in Washington, DC, the US leader said that his administration had been preparing for this eventuality since the outbreak in West Africa started seven months ago.

“I do understand that people have a growing skepticism of institutions for a long time including government. But people should know that in every one of those situations you mentioned, where a problem arises we deal with it quickly, we deal with it forcefully to make sure it doesn’t happen,” he said.

When pressed on whether it was being too reactive rather than proactive, he fired back, saying administration officials are acting to stop Ebola in Africa before it becomes a

problem in the U.S. “That’s exactly what we’re doing.

The only way to deal with is to stop it at its source,” he said Meanwhile, the fifth American to contract Ebola in West Africa arrived in the United States for treatment on Monday as the first patient diagnosed with the deadly virus on US soil was in critical condition at a Dallas hospital, officials said.

A private plane carrying Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman for NBC News who contracted Ebola in Liberia, landed in Omaha and was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center.

Also, a Spanish nurse who treated an Ebola victim in Madrid is suspected of being the first person to have contracted the virus outside Africa, Spanish media say.

The nurse tested positive for Ebola in initial tests and doctors are awaiting final results, according to reports.

She was a member of the team that treated Spanish priest Manuel Garcia Viejo, who died of Ebola on 25 September.

AWARD: Nobel Prize Goes To Discoverers Of Brain’s GPS British-American John O’Keefe and Norwegians May-Britt and Edvard Moser won the 2014 Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering the brain’s navigation system and giving clues as to how strokes and Alzheimer’s disrupt it.

The Nobel Assembly, which awarded the prize of 8 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million) at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute on Monday, said the discovery solved a problem that had occupied philosophers and scientists for centuries: “How does the brain create a map of the space surrounding us and how can we navigate our way through a complex environment?”

Ole Kiehn, a Nobel committee member and professor in Karolinska’s neuroscience department, said the three scientists had found “an inner GPS that makes it possible to know where we are and find our way”.

O’Keefe, now director at the

center in neural circuits and behavior at University College London (UCL), discovered the first element of the positioning system in 1971 when he found that a type of nerve cell in a brain region called the hippocampus was always activated when a rat was in a certain place in a room.

Seeing that other nerve cells were activated when the rat was in other positions, O´Keefe concluded that these “place cells” formed a map of the room.

Uta Frith, a UCL professor of cognitive development said O’Keefe had shown “it is possible to literally map the mind”.

“He has done much more than discovering neuronal mechanisms in the brain: he has discovered cognitive mechanisms that explain how human beings and other animals navigate,” she said.

“This beautiful work is heralding a new age of exploration of brain and mind.”

—Reuters

Analysis 51

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

A

Inside Raqqa, it’s impossible to work as a freelancer or just take photos in the city,” he said. “(Before ISIL), we worked freely; nobody stopped us or asked us what we were doing or why we were taking photos

third video of John Cantlie, a British journalist who has spent 22 months in the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters in Syria, was released last week. Wearing an orange jumpsuit, Cantlie criticised the US-led air strikes on ISIL positions, urging online viewers to “join [him] again for the next programme”.

Earlier this year, ISIL released similar propaganda videos showing the beheadings of US journalists James Foley and Stephen Sotloff.

Also dressed in orange jumpsuits and kneeling in front of their captors before their deaths, the reporters had been kidnapped months earlier in Syria, which is now the most dangerous place in the world for journalists.

“It was [such a] barbaric and horrifying crime,” said Soazig Dollet, head of the Middle EastNorth Africa desk at Reporters without Borders (RSF), about Foley’s and Sotloff’s killings. “The propaganda from [ISIL] in this video was also one of the reasons why the reaction was that strong.”

Dollet told Al Jazeera that at least 19 Syrian journalists, and one foreign journalist, are still held by ISIL in Syria.

“If you asked most people to name a single Syrian or Arab journalist butchered by (ISIL), they would almost certainly be unable to do so,” Syrian photojournalist Zaid al-Fares wrote in early September.

From the city of Raqqa, now firmly under ISIL control after the group seized the Tabqa airbase in August, Fares fled to Turkey after receiving death threats from fighters affiliated with the group in November 2013. They said: “Leave the city or we will arrest or kill you,” Fares told Al Jazeera from Gaziantep, where he now lives.

“Inside Raqqa, it’s impossible to work as a freelancer or just take photos in the city,” he said. “(Before ISIL), we worked freely; nobody stopped us or asked us what we were doing or why we were taking photos.”

But abuses against journalists in Syria have taken place at the hands of virtually all groups involved in the fighting. “The Islamic State [ISIL] militant group is one of the most dangerous groups that journalists face, not just in Syria but throughout the region. With that said, they are not the only threat, not even close,” said Jason Stern, Middle East and North Africa researcher at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

“Eighty-five percent of the journalists killed in Syria are local journalists. We often talk about how Syria is unprecedented in terms of the number of kidnappings, the murders of James Foley and Stephen Sotloff, but what’s not unprecedented … is that local journalists bear the brunt of the dangers,” Stern told Al Jazeera.

In 2013, the UN General

Briton John Cantlie is being held captive by ISIL, along with more than a dozen Syrian journalists.

Syria Journalists ‘On The Margins Of History’ Assembly adopted a resolution condemning attacks on journalists and media workers, including “torture, extrajudicial killings, [and] enforced disappearances”, as well as “intimidation and harassment in both conflict and non-conflict situations”.

More than 70 journalists have been killed in Syria since 2011, according to CPJ figures, while dozens of others have been arrested, detained, injured and intimidated. Both President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and opposition groups have been accused of cracking down on dissent in areas under their respective control, and of committing abuses against media workers.

Kurdish Asayish and People’s Protection Unit (YPG) forces have reportedly created an information ministry to control what news comes out of Rojava, a Kurdishmajority area in northeast Syria, and threatened independent journalists with expulsion. Other armed rebel groups are also accused of disappearing Syrian journalists and human rights defenders.

Regime forces, meanwhile, have arrested dozens of journalists, often keeping them incommunicado in unknown locations, while several have also died while in government custody after allegedly being tortured. “[Syrian journalists] would take certain measures to protect their identity and their work,” explained an editor at The Damascus Bureau, a news website and training programme for Syrian journalists set up by the US-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting. “They would use a different email account

every time. Then at a certain point, they would stop reporting and stop working altogether. Other people have left Syria, mainly to Turkey, because of this pressure.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, the editor said that anxiety within the organisation’s network of about 30 Syrian journalists has skyrocketed.

“Things have gone from bad to worse on the ground. They fear that there are [fewer] people they can trust… I could feel this mounting anxiety or concern,” the editor said.

“There’s a similarity in how armed groups or authorities act on the ground with respect to controlling [journalists’ reports] … you can see that more or less all the parties are interested in controlling what gets reported out of their areas.”

For decades, the Syrian government - under Hafez alAssad, and later, his son, Bashar - maintained an iron grip on freedom of information and expression across the country.

State monitoring of digital communications and telephone lines created a widespread fear of speaking out publicly, while Syrian media was limited to stateowned outlets, or private entities with close ties to the ruling Assad family.

“Before [the uprising began in] 2011, even the concept of freedom of expression and freedom of information was just non-existent in Syria. There was no independent media... There was not even a drop of independence,” said RSF’s Dollet.

The situation deteriorated dramatically following the start

of the war, and last year, Syria was the third most heavily censored country in the world, behind only Eritrea and North Korea. “[Journalists] are seen by the protagonists of any conflict, whether they like it or not, as being part of it. The war does not only take place on the ground, it also takes place in the media,” explained Dina Matar, senior lecturer in Arab media and political communication at the University of London (SOAS).

Matar told Al Jazeera that in Syria’s sectarian conflict, like during the Lebanese civil war in 1975, local journalists might be targeted simply for belonging to a particular ethnic or religious group, or being from a specific geographic area.

“Regimes understand that there is a need for legitimacy, and a need for them to acquire legitimacy by trying to tell the story that they want to tell. If they see that a journalist is finding some gaps in that story … then they are going to target that journalist,” she said, adding that Syrian journalists “are almost forgotten, they’re on the margins of history”.

Yet despite these challenges, the work of journalists in Syria continues. “[It] is very dangerous because we have shelling, bombs, air strikes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s non-stop war in Syria. That’s very dangerous for anyone, not just for journalists,” photojournalist Fares said.

“For me, [journalism] is my gift; I am fighting for it. We have started a revolution [and] we will continue to the end.”

—Al Jazeera

52 Analysis

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Uncovering Japan’s Throwaway Children

I

I want to love my child, but my past cannot let me do that

n the United Kingdom, United States and other developed countries, abused or neglected children are often sent to live with a foster family. But that rarely happens in Japan, one of the world’s wealthiest and most progressive societies.

Close to 90 percent of Japan’s troubled children are placed in state institutions - out of sight and out of mind.

Some 33,000 children currently live in such institutions in this society that frowns upon the use of foster care. But critics say the excessive reliance on 131 child nursing homes across the country represents a form of abuse in itself.

Inside these institutions there are babies as young as six months old, and institutionalised children spend on average five years in the nursing homes. This is despite United Nations guidelines stipulating that alternative care for children under the age of three should almost always be in family-based settings.

Human Rights Watch found that Japan’s alternative child care system suffers from overly large institutions where physical space is limited and chances for bonding are scarce.

There are poor conditions of the facilities; physical and sexual abuse, by both caregivers and other children, occurs; and there are insufficient mechanisms for children to report problems.

“It’s heartbreaking to see children crammed into institutions and deprived of the chance for life in a caring family setting,” says Kanae Doi, the Japan director at Human Rights Watch.

Critics say the overwhelming use of institutions instead of family-based care is failing thousands of vulnerable children by not preparing them for independent, productive lives in Japanese society. They are calling for the Japanese government to overhaul its alternative care system, which they say harms the well-being and healthy development of children and infants, and contravenes international children’s rights.

Foster care has not emerged as a viable alternative for abused children in Japan because governments have failed to properly train carers, monitor the placements, or adequately educate the public about its benefits. As a result, one-quarter of the children placed in such settings return to institutions.

Homeless Japanese children queuing up for food in an institution.

In the Japanese child welfare system, biological parents retain all legal rights over their child even if they have an abusive history - leading many to have very unstable childhoods.

“I think the government completely lacks the concept of children’s rights. The number of children receiving alternative care is extremely small so they are a minority. So the thinking is that it doesn’t matter what happens to those kids, they have no one to speak up for them,” says Tetsuo Tsuzaki, a child protection expert from Kyoto Prefectural University.

With child abuse cases rising to a record 73,000 cases last year, the problem of institutions and where to place troubled children is unlikely to go away.

In Japan, when a child is removed from his or her parents due to neglect, they are more likely to be placed in an institution, rather than a foster home.

Japan strongly values blood ties, so welcoming a stranger’s child into a family seems unnatural to many people.

Some parents believe a foster family could steal their son or daughter forever, so choose to send them to an institution instead.

As a result, a staggering 85 percent of children in Japanese institutions are victims of physical and sexual abuse.

In my home country Australia, foster care is thought to be the best course of action for children who have suffered at the hands of their parents.

So in Japan, seeing children housed in facilities that often look like run-down orphanages

seemed strange given how progressive and modern the country is.

But for government welfare bodies, these institutions are a reliable and safe place to put a child in crisis.

Reports of child abuse in Japan are on the rise, reaching record levels. Over 73,000 cases were recorded by authorities last year.

Japan is also a country where speaking out about child abuse causes great shame, which is why I was struck by Yuki Okada, a Tokyo musician who is one of the few child abuse campaigners talking openly about her life growing up in a violent family.

“I experienced physical, psychological and sexual abuse.” she told me. “My brothers often hurt me and one time they tied me against a pillar in the house and my mother just cheered them on.

When I cried loudly, my parents would gag me so neighbours couldn’t hear. I thought I’d choke to death but it also crossed my mind that dying would make things easier for me.”

Yuki then told me that when she became a mother she went on to abuse her own son.

To try and understand, I asked her why victims often become abusers. Yuki said she never had a positive parental role-model and that is what led her to go down the same path.

“You love your child because he is so adorable but the more I loved the child, the more my own inner child sprung back in me. The voice inside me said, ‘Why do you get all this love when I didn’t? Why are you getting everything?’

“I want to love my child,

but my past cannot let me do that. Victims of abuse tend to think this way … they are torn by maternal affection and a meaner, victimised self that comes back.”

Today, Yuki is fighting to save children from a fate like hers, by educating mothers in parenting skills. She says Japan is focused on putting children in institutions, yet few organisations are available to help young women become good mothers.

“Mothers are clueless about child-rearing. But there is no institution where they can learn about it and that is why the chain reaction of abuse cannot be stopped.”

Yuki confronted her demons by writing a book about her past called Ugly Ducklings.

She has counselled 5,000 women over the years who have survived troubled childhoods.

We sat in on a session with Nami – a 24-year-old woman who is pregnant with her first child and worries that she will abuse her daughter.

During her tumultuous childhood, singing was a way that Yuki helped alleviate the stress in her life. Now she performs as a singer on the live jazz music scene in Tokyo.

As I watched one of Yuki’s live performances, she sang about love, and I wondered about the fate of the 33,000 children in institutions across Japan, and whether her message would reach them.

“If you can care for others and have compassion towards them, then it will lead to better understanding about children who are abused and parents who abuse them,” Yuki says.

—Al Jazeera

Monday, October 7, 2014

Keshi Says Moses Out For 3 Weeks Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi has ruled out injured Victor Moses from an AFCON double-header against Sudan as he expects the Stoke City star to be out for at least three weeks.

Victor Moses was recalled for the Sudan qualifiers after he was overlooked for the matches against Congo and South Africa last month with

Keshi saying the player was off form. But the winger will not again be available for the African champions after a recurrence of a thigh injury at Sunderland on Saturday.

“I tried to reach him on phone, but he did not pick up.

The team secretary reached him and he may now be out for three weeks or so,” Keshi disclosed.

53

Moses

Nigerian Breweries Donates Trophy For Independence Golf Tourney

Nigerian Breweries Plc has announced the donation of a special trophy for the Overall Best Player in this year’s edition of the prestigious Independence Day Tournament organized by the IBB International Golf and Country Club, Abuja.

The Tournament takes place annually on October 1st to mark the nation’s independence anniversary.

The Independence Day Golf Tournament has over the years become recognized as a platform to celebrate Nigeria’s independence and unity using sports, a unifying force all over the world. Nigerian Breweries has been a major sponsor of

the tournament since 2002.

Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries Plc, Mr Nicholaas Vervelde who announced the donation of the trophy, commended the Management of the IBB Golf and Country club for the continuous improvement the event has witnessed over the years, noting that this was one of the reasons the company has sustained its sponsorship of the tournament.

Mr Vervelde said “the tournament is an opportunity to build bridges of friendship which will further unite us as a nation and ensure that the labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain.” He noted that the trophy

was only one of the several support initiatives lined up for the tournament this year by Nigerian Breweries Plc. Nigerian Breweries Plc remains a major sponsor of sports especially Golf in the country, with tournaments holding in various parts of the country such as the NDA Open Golf Tournament in Kaduna, Jaji Open Golf in Jaji, NB Amateur Golf Tournament in Enugu, Aba, Asaba and Benin, as well as the Tiger Open Golf Tournament in Ibadan and the Dragon Open Golf in Enugu, among others.

Several dignitaries as well as local and international players are expected to grace the event this year.

Head, Govt Relations, Nigerian Breweries Plc, Mr Vivian Ikem (left), presenting the trophy to Mr Babatunde Ojerinde, the overall winner of the Independence Day Golf Tournament sponsored by Nigerian Breweries Plc at the IBB Golf and Country Club, Abuja.

Full Eagles Camp Expected Today For Battle Of Omdurman As at 3pm yesterday, at least ten players have arrived the team’s camp with training expected to commence on Tuesday Morning at the training pitch of the Abuja National Stadium

With ten players already in camp in preparation for the must win clash in Sudan, the team’s camp is expected to be full today. Because of the seriousness of the assignment for the Eagles in the double header against Sudan in Omdurman and Abuja promptness of players’ arrival to the team’s camp at the Bolton White Apartment in Abuja, the Federal Capital has been witnessed.

As at 3pm yesterday, at least ten players have arrived the team’s camp with training expected to commence this morning at the training pitch of the Abuja National Stadium. All other players invited for the game are expected today before dinner time.

Among the early arrivals are

Omatsone Aluke of Hull City, Hope Akpan, Babatunde Michael, who shone like a million star at the Brazil 2014 World Cup, midfield gem, Noskhare Igiebor, who recently relocated to Israel, Aaron Samuel, Gbolahan Salami of Warri Wolves, his team captain in Warri, towering Azubuike Egwuekwe, Emem Edward , Chigozie Agbim and leading Nigerian league scorer, Ighodalo Osagunna.

A visibly refreshed Head Coach, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, said he was impressed by the response of the players because of the need to bond well before the first leg game against Sudan. “The response so far has been wonderful and I am in touch with those who are yet to ar-

Balotelli Not Left Out Of Euro Qualifiers – Conte

Balotelli

Mario Balotelli has not been excluded from the Italy squad, coach Antonio Conte said on Monday, despite overlooking the maverick striker for this month’s Euro 2016 qualifiers. Conte said that Balotelli, heavily criticised for his performance at the World Cup and left out of Conte’s first two matches in charge last month, needed more time to adapt after his move from AC Milan to Liverpool. “I make selections, not exclusions,” Conte told reporters at Italy’s training camp outside Florence. “Balotelli has started on a new path and it’s not easy, he will be given time to integrate himself into a new championship. “I certainly follow him just as I follow all the play-

ers who are abroad.”

Conte also lavished praise on Southampton striker Graziano Pelle who has been given his first call-up at the age of 29. “Pelle has deserved his chance from every point of view,” said Conte.

“He has scored 50 goals in the last two seasons (with Feyenoord) and he is also showing this season that he is a leading figure in a league that is more difficult than the Dutch one.

“He is an example that here we will do things on merit; we have our eyes open and a player who does well in the league will get a chance.” Italy are at home to Azerbaijan on Friday and visit Malta the following Monday.

rive and they will surely be here on time for proper preparation against Sudan.

Speaking in the same vein, reelected member of the NFF Executive Committee, Chief Felix Anyansi Agwu, said the new board under the leadership Melvin Amaju Pinnick is determined to not only qualify Nigeria for the Maroc 2015 Nations Cup but also to retain the trophy.

“We have the experience of a lot of the executive committee members and the President is determined that we will reach our destination, that is why we are meeting this week to chat the way forward for the national teams”, he declared.

Keshi

Maiden One Service One Medal Games In Kaduna Oct 20 The maiden edition of the One Service One Medal (OSOM) Games will begin in Kaduna on October 20, LEADERSHIP Sports has gathered.

Coordinator of the games, Dr Ademola Are informed that it is being organIsed by the National Sports Commission (NSC) in collaboration with NOC. He explained that it would feature eight sporting events from where service men and women from military and paramilitary formations from where medals

hopeful for the 2016 Rio Olympics would be selected. “The maiden edition of OSOM will begin from October 19 with the arrival. Opening ceremony will be held on 20 and end on 26. “We just concluded the last meeting with representatives of military and paramilitary and secretaries of the eight federations that will be featured,” he explained.

The sports that will be featured are; athletics, boxing, taekwondo, swimming, wrestling, judo, shooting and golf.

Follow these reports on leadership.ng/sports

54 sports

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

USA Women Win 5th FIBA World Title

US star, Maya Moore

World champions USA retained their title after rolling to a 77-64 triumph against Spain in the Final of the 2014 FIBA World Championship for Women at Fenerbahce Arena in Istanbul.

In doing so, the USA won their fourth world crown in the last five outings of the event.

They showcased their outstanding depth and talent from the outset, with Maya Moore scoring eight quick-fire points to carve out a doubledigit lead at 15-5.

Spain trailed by 11 heading into the second quarter and the first-time finalists fell further behind as Moore kept her foot on the gas to score 16

points by the time the first half had elapsed.

The Spaniards trailed 48-29 at halftime but fought back in the third quarter when Alba Torrens came to life with 10 points in the period.

The USA continued to engage cruise control as their depth in scoring and some terrific defense allowed them to head into the final quarter up 67-48.

Spain produced a late rally, holding their opponents to just 10 points over the closing 10 minutes to reduce the final margin and finish on a high note.

Moore, who had 18 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal

in the Final, was rewarded for her impressive play in the tournament by receiving the Most Valuable Player awarded, presented by Tissot. The 25-yearold headlined the All-Star Five which also included the Spanish pair of Alba Torrens and Sancho Lyttle, Australia’s Penny Taylor and Moore’s USA team-mate Brittney Griner.

Australia claimed third place after stunning Turkey with a spectacular start to secure a stunning 74-44 success against the local favourites.

In the 5-8 Classification Games, Canada claimed fifth place with a 61-53 win over China, while France finished seventh after beating Serbia

88-74.

Final Standings of 2014 FIBA World Championship for Women: 1. USA 2. Spain 3. Australia 4. Turkey 5. Canada 6. China 7. France 8. Serbia 9. Czech Republic 10. Belarus 11. Brazil 12. Cuba 13. Korea 14. Japan 15. Mozambique 16. Angola

Bewarang Tasks Pinnick’s Board On Committed Technical Department The National President of the Nigeria Football Coaches Association (NFCA) Mr. Bitrus Bewarang has called on the newly elected Executive members of the Nigeria Football Federation led by Amaju Pinnick to as a matter of importance constitute a credible and committed technical committee. The Plateau United General Manager said the development of the game cannot be possible if Nigeria does not have a more committed technical committee of the Board. “This technical committee is the engineer room of the Board, and should be composed of members who are really committed to the development of the game, and with the needed technical depth in the game” he said.

He urged them to speedily intensify efforts in develop-

ing the game in the country, starting from the grassroots.

Bewarang who contested to enter the Board from the North Central zone but lost to the duo of Suleiman Kwande and Ahmed Yusuf (Fresh) expressed confidence on the abilities of the newly elected Board to turn the fortunes of the game round in the country “let me first congratulate the newly elected Board of the NFF for their efforts in emerging at the elective congress held last week in Warri, Delta state. I also want to commend the NFF for ensuring that the congress went successful. I want to use this opportunity to call on the Board to intensify efforts in the development of the game right from the grassroots. The local leagues should be encouraged the more, and various youth

development programmes should be established to ensure that we have better replacements for our ageing footballers”.

Similarly, chairman of the FCT Football Coaches Mr. Godwin Bamigboye has expressed disappointment over the inability of the Congress of the NFF to elect a coach or former player into the Board of Federation. He said that electing a Coach or Player to the Board would have speedily develop the game in the country, because of their various vast experiences acquired over a length of years. He however, advised the new leadership of the NFF to ensure that the new technical committee of the Federation is composed of those who are well grounded in the game, most especially Coaches and ex-players.

Bewarang

Babangida Wants FC Taraba Out Of Relegation To Encourage Fans

Babangida in his playing days

If Chairman FC Taraba has any dream, it is to wriggle the Jalingo based club out of relegation at the end of the 2013/2014 football season. There is eight more weeks to go and FC Taraba is battling relegation. After getting a

lifeline of beating Warri Wolves at home 3-1 at the Jolly Nyame Stadium in Jalingo, he said his biggest prayer is not to disappoint Taraba fans who have fallen in love with the team and seen some good football by engaging top clubs at home. Babangida revealed that the fans base in Taraba have increased by virtue of playing in the professional league and the fans are yearning for more.

“We thank God for the fighting zeal and opportunity to take the three maximum points. About fighting relegation, you know that in the league so far this season every team had its own bad moments. Eyimba from the beginning of the season had their bad times but are now done with that. Pillars, Gombe, Kaduna United all had their seasons. We almost had a clean sheet when the league started but I consider

now our bad moments. The truth is that we are fighting relegation but we are going to fight till the end. I can assure that FC Taraba will fight till the end and God willing we will survive it.”

FC Taraba boasts of one of the best stadiums in the country and presently the best edifice in the entire northeast with emerging strong fans base. On the day Pillars visited, gate takings was said to have amounted to a whopping N1.8m. What does it mean for Taraba fans should the club get relegated? Babangida explains, “When I came in on the invitation of Gov Danbaba Suntai to see the facilities on ground and turn the fortunes of football in the state, I was amazed at the facility I saw. There is no state in the north with this kind of facility, even Kaduna that is a sports hub and boasts of a big stadium does not have such complete fa-

cility. Good enough the acting governor is supporting and that is why l want to fight to make sure FC Taraba remains in the NPFL so that the fans and people of Taraba will enjoy football and give other Nigerians opportunity to come and see the facility in Jalingo. Again we have players that have graduated from academies and very exposed from Taraba who we are planning to integrate into the team so that they will compete at that senior level. They are ripe already; they have been to Europe, Dubai and everywhere in Nigeria and well exposed for the challenges ahead.

FC Taraba is willing to offer that opportunity.”

“When we started, we were not having fans come to see games; the highest was pockets of fans about 50 maximum, but good things began and they could see Kano Pillars, Enyimba and oth-

er big clubs visiting, interest increased and you could see how happy they are with their team.

They are proud of the team which is why I am praying we escape this relegation to make the fans happy.”

On placement of coaches on suspension, he said it worked: “Sometimes when you discover some things are wrong with a team you suspend the coach and you can see that things are changing now but I don’t want to say much about it. What is wrong with Nigerian football is that the players are owed salaries. Our boys were owed up to four or five months salaries and that affected their morale but the moment they paid them two months as part of the money you can see the result. So, if the government can settle another two maybe we will continue to score three in every game.”

sports 55

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

League action: Dolphins player backing empty stands

Create Suspense, Fans Will Fill Stadiums – Ogarandu Chief coach of FC Taraba, Tony Ogarandu has revealed how more fans can be wooed into stadiums across the country to watch the Nigeria Professional Football League even when games in Europe are being played.

Ogarandu who led FC Taraba to humble league giants Warri Wolves 3-1 on Week 30 fixtures at the Jolly Nyame stadium in Jalingo before an impressive crowd even though the fixture almost clashed with the Chelsea vs Arsenal EPL game said all fans want in the Nigerian league is suspense.

According to him, those involved in the business must begin to think of allowing the game open where results cannot be predetermined by fans.

He said once fans believe they can enter any stadium both home and away to watch games that will be open 50/50 for the better side to win, it will encourage them to see more games.

Oarandu said thay are already operating in that atmosphere in Jalingo-reason why their fan base have increased.

“This is why we are in this business; to help motivate and encourage fans to troop to stadiums even with the competition with foreign leagues. What the fans want is suspense and we must give them that suspense.

It is not coming to watch a match that the result is already predetermined; once you know the result what are you coming to watch? Fans want good football and the referees have come to Taraba to open the game 50/50 to allow the better side win no matter where the club is from. We must realize that there are Igbos in Taraba and if they believe a club from the east will come and be allowed to play well they will fill the stadium to support. So also if people from the west that is the Yorubas in Taraba believe a team can come from the southwest and play for the better team to carry the day they will troop to the stadium. Fans will def-

initely come when the games are opened up for the better team to win. We have fans and what brings fans to the stadium is suspense and there is suspense in Taraba stadium.”

Opening up on the big win after the coaching crew was placed on suspension, he said the team had to resort to its Plan B after Plan A was not yielding desired results. “We have a programme at FC Taraba after we agreed that the club is a baby team in the Glo Premier League. On the programme we strategized into Plan A and B; where Plan A fails we resolved to revert to Plan B which is exactly the magic as to why we got the result. Kudos to the boys too who keyed into it and played to instructions.”

“We analysed the team and looked into the team and are eliminating aspects distracting us and not working for the team. That is the magic. In Plan A we were operating in a system that was not working, so we had to resort to Plan B which simply was to identify what was responsible, eliminating them and getting focused.

Plan A was dropped because it was not yielding the desired results even though we were playing well. We have a programme which is like a blueprint for a newly promoted club like ours which is not static but flexible and dynamic; and should it not work this way we change direction because football is highly scientific-and that is what I mean by Plan B. Now that we have experimented on Plan B and is has given us result ofcourse we stick to it for some time; you know football is science, dynamic and not stereotyped. You move with the challenges coming up and the caliber of teams you are playing demands your plan whether A or B. I have the kind of players to prosecute successfully the Plan B but my major problems are injuries but since they are young players I believe they will get better on time to finish the job.”

Courtois, in action for Chelsea

Chelsea Berated Over Courtois Head Injury Chelsea’s handling of Thibaut Courtois’s head injury in Sunday’s win over Arsenal has been criticised by brain injury charity Headway.

The goalkeeper collided with Alexis Sanchez, but played on for 14 minutes before going to hospital for checks. Headway chief executive Peter McCabe said it was “hard to understand how a concussion was not suspected”. Chelsea defended their actions, saying Courtois, 22, had suffered “a minor cut to the ear”.

Courtois tweeted yesterday: “Thanks for all the messages! I’m already feeling better. Now I’m resting to be recovered and back on the pitch soon. Great victory

yesterday.”

Under Premier League rules introduced this season, players must leave the pitch after suffering a head injury. Courtois was injured in the 10th minute at Stamford Bridge. After being assessed on the pitch by Chelsea medical staff, he continued until the 24th minute, when he was replaced by Petr Cech.

Television pictures appeared to show Belgium international Courtois bleeding from an ear as he was substituted. “The new rules introduced this season were designed to ensure no risks to players’ health were taken,” McCabe said in a statement.

“They clearly state that ‘if

there is any suspicion of the player having sustained a concussion, they must be removed from the field of play, and not allowed to return’. “Bleeding from one or both ears is one of the symptoms that requires an immediate visit to hospital.” A Chelsea spokesman told BBC Sport: “Thibaut Courtois went to hospital during our game against Arsenal yesterday for precautionary tests on a head injury. Chelsea say Courtois’s precautionary tests at hospital “came back all clear” “Those tests came back all clear. He is expected to report for international duty later this week.

Agara Thrilled With Nasarawa’s Rebound Special Adviser Sports to governor Tanko Al-makura of Nasarawa State, Silas Agara is thrilled with Nasarawa United’s return to the second place on the log as the league cruises to an end. Agara said the team must maintain this tempo to give the state a continental ticket at the end of the season. The Lafia based club were the biggest gainers on the log on a day all the other top four teams stumbled to defeats. A hat trick from the team’s Ugochukwu Leonard in the 3-1 defeat of Kaduna United and Peter Ebimobowei’s 14th goal of the season were some of the highpoints of Match Day 30 that 20 goals in seven win and three draws.

Leonard opened his hat trick account on the 12th minute and followed up with a second 17 minutes after before completing the evening of treble with a strike

on 48 minutes. But Solomon Bitrus pulled one back for Kaduna United four minutes from time. Nasarawa thus has hauled in 47 points, three behind leaders, Kano Pillars who fail to a Bobby Clement’s 10th minute goal at the Dan Anyiam Stadium in Owerri. Pillars remain on 50 points.

Warri Wolves were beaten 3-1 in Jalingo and now stays third on the log following Enyimba’s failure to win in Ibadan Nasarawa United Coach Baba Ganaru against struggling Crown FC and Dolphins defeat to Abia loma will restore parity before NdiWarriors in a match that end- freke hits another free kick in added abruptly with Dolphins play- ed time. After a brief discussion with his assistant Referee, the Center Refers refusing to continue play.

Ndifreke Effiong had given eree rescinded his earlier decision to Abia Warriors the lead on 33 now allow the goal to count. But Dolminutes off a powerful free kick phins players and officials refused to from 20 yards but Emeka Atu- continue play.

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AMUSEMENT PARK ALL MEN ARE BORN FREE, BUT SOME OF THEM GET MARRIED

07.10.14 www.leadership.ng

Comrade Timi Frank

Tuesday Column:

O

n September 18, international human rights group, Amnesty International (AI) released a ten-year report on human rights violations in Nigeria by security agencies, especially the Nigeria Police Force.

The report, entitled “Welcome to Hell fire, Torture and Other IllTreatment in Nigeria”, chronicles about 500 cases of alleged torture and other forms of inhuman treatment visited on Nigerians by security operatives. As usual, the police dismissed the report as untrue. “While we do not question the freedom of Amnesty International to earn its relevance and bread, the Nigeria Police takes serious exceptions to some blatant falsehoods and innuendoes contained in that report,” Force spokesperson Emmanuel Ojukwu had said in a statement.

However, that hasty denial goes up in smoke against the recent illegal arrest, detention and torture of Amaechi Anakwe, presenter of Democratic Licence - a programme on the African Independent Television (AIT) network - by the assistant inspector-general (AIG) of police in charge of Zone 7, Abuja, Mr Mbu Joseph Mbu. Mbu arrested and detained Anakwe for allegedly referring to him as “controversial” during a television programme.

Following the arrest, Anakwe was subjected to torture - both psychological and physical - and eight hours incarceration, during which he was denied access to his family members, including his wife and children.

Needless to say, the activities of Mbu alone are enough to validate the atrocities attributed to the Nigeria Police Force by Amnesty International. Recall that during the tumultuous reign of Mbu in Rivers State, riots, shootings, firing of tear gas, bombings and wanton arrest of members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) were the order of the day. During one of such acts of repression, the governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, was prevented from using one of the entrances to the Rivers

FOR GOD AND COUNTRY

No. 2,269

— Simon Grey

TUESDAY

N150

‘Oga Joe’ And The Reign Of Impunity 08070888888 (text only)

State Government House in Port Harcourt on the orders of Mbu. In another incident, the senator representing Rivers South East, Magnus Abe, was shot by policemen on the orders of Mbu, who claimed that only rubber bullets were fired.

Most people only became acquainted with the name Mbu when he held sway as the ‘alternate governor’ of Rivers State. However, prior to that inglorious stint he had served as a deputy commissioner of police in Anambra State. Some say he was in Anambra when the then sitting governor, Chris Ngige, was forcefully abducted on the orders of ex-CP, Raphael Ige, now of blessed memory. A few years later, Mbu became CP in Oyo State.

While there, he notoriously led the police team that sacked the palace of the Ashipa in a most denigrating manner. Mbu had claimed that he was enforcing a court order in the Alaafin versus Ashipa imbroglio. In Rivers State, Mbu ensured that the House of Assembly became an arena for a free-for-all. His final act was to set free the thugs that were used for the most heinous enterprise during that deplorable episode.

In Rivers State, Mbu had clearly sided with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the crisis, which is in sharp contrast to his mandated role of protecting life and property without fear or favour. For instance, his withdrawal and nonreplacement of security aides of the speaker of the House of Assembly and the chief of staff to the governor, mobilising women to protest in his favour, are all evidence of his partisanship. The police re-occupation of the Obi-Akpor Council secretariat showed disdain for things decent and legal. When he was eventually moved, he boasted that he was a ‘lion’ that tamed the ‘leopard’ in Rivers State.

It is also noteworthy that Mbu’s first public show as commissioner of police for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was the use of tear gas and water canon to disperse polytechnic and college of education teachers on a peaceful protest. He upped the ante when thugs wearing T-shirts and apparently supervised

by his men. descended on the mostly female #BringBackOurGirls campaigners, who had assembled peacefully at the Unity Fountain in Abuja. After these shenanigans by a rival protest group of hardened thugs, Mbu declared that dangerous elements were about to hijack the #BringBackOurGirls protest. He pronto declared, “Protests on the Chibok girls are hereby banned with immediate effect. As the FCT police boss, I cannot fold my hands and watch this lawlessness.” His gaffe was immediately reversed by the former IGP, Mohammed Abubakar.

Did Mbu, ever so mindful of his self importance, seek the permission of the inspector-general of police, before dragging Anakwe before a Magistrate’s Court? If such permission was not sought and granted, is Mbu now above his superiors by acting solo in a matter capable of worsening the image and human rights record of the police?

Why did Mbu hurriedly withdraw the case of alleged character defamation he instituted against Anakwe at a Senior Magistrates’ Court in Wuse Zone 2, Abuja?

The prosecutor, Chijioke Okeizie, had applied for withdrawal of the matter without mentioning the First Information Report (FIR), in open court. He told the court that the reason for the withdrawal of the case was “best known to the nominal complainant” (Mbu).

For a sensitive government, Mbu’s open confession that he is now ‘a lion in police uniform’ is enough to say enough is enough. But to an insensitive government running a police state, that is the tonic needed to award Mbu an AIG insignia.

Again, one cannot blame Mbu without greater blame going to the authorities that do nothing but reward rascality, impunity and corruption. Mbu, after his ignoble reign as self-styled alternate governor in Rivers State was brought to Abuja made CP. Barely a year after, he was made an AIG. Here lies the audacity. Having seen that the present administration condones evil and romances corruption, he has engaged the highest gear in the craft of outrageousness. Mbu must go, if

How can a government agency be allowed to prey on the weak and vulnerable in society without repercussions? It only shows that the authorities have totally lost focus only to atone for this mad affront on innocent citizens.

Is there any hope that the wishes of Nigerians will be respected on this issue? I don’t think that President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration will budge, because the president and the institutions. he runs have consistently demonstrated utter disdain for the opinions of the electorate. The call for the sack of Abba Moro is still pending. The call for the sack of director general of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms Aruma Oteh, by the House of Representatives may never be heeded. Yes, Stella Oduah was sacked when it was obvious that the game was up, but the Jonathan administration has not followed up the sack with prosecution for the squandering of over N255million on two bulletproof BMW cars when she was minister of aviation.

The allegations of monumental corruption trailing the minister of petroleum, Mrs Diezani AlisonMadueke seem not enough for a government mouthing an anticorruption mantra to sack and prosecute her, not minding the fact that the $20billion oil money that disappeared from the Nigerian National Petroleum ‘Corruption’ (NNPC) under her watch has not been accounted for. She can stay, not minding her unconventional methods to evade being probed by the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum for allegedly squandering N10billion on private jets in two years.

Another case of impunity and outright corruption is the recent announcement of a N4000 levy as registration fee before graduates can receive their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) call up letters.

timifrank@leadership.ng Any sensitive government would have immediately called on the director general of the organisation who mooted the idea to resign. The chance of that happening is remote if not non-existent, because this is a government that has enthroned impunity as an art of governance.

How can a government agency be allowed to prey on the weak and vulnerable in society without repercussions? It only shows that the authorities have totally lost focus. In the past, they plundered the nation’s resources. Now they plunder the people with nobody to say enough is enough. It is a pity that the unofficial practice by the police of demanding that suspects, victims or their family members pay for writing materials before taking statements or granting bail and for other unauthorised ‘incentives’ has found its way into the civil service.

A disciplined and efficient police organisation need not be persuaded to summarily discharge Mbu following his illegal arrest and detention of Anakwe. He needs to be eased out now to prevent his current adversarial posture from dealing a mortal blow on the image of the police. The scriptures say that salt that has lost its taste is good for nothing. If the government neglects to save the nation, where then does our salvation lie?

GHANA MUST GO Rivers economy will crash if Jonathan wins in 2015 — Gov Amaechi

Chai!

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